What Is IMVU? An IMVU App Review for Parents

Harmful Content 😲

Upon joining the app, you create an “avatar” — an animated version of yourself — complete with hairstyle, body type, clothes, and accessories. It’s worth noting that every possible option for customization is “sexy,” from ripped jeans to exaggerated body parts. Once you’re done, you can then start exploring the app, which immediately opens up a world of harmful content to kids. 

The community guidelines prohibit all sorts of activity, including porn, hate speech, age misrepresentation, harm to minors, and more. Just five minutes spent in the app, however, reveal it’s clear that not much is enforced. Some of the things users will encounter almost immediately include: 

Extreme sexual content

Many of the chat rooms you can enter with your avatar have sexual-themed names, like “Lover’s room” or “50 sexy poses for a couple.” When you enter, you can see other avatars, and often they’re on a bed in the room. You can perform “poses” on other avatars, including ones that simulate sexual activity pretty graphically. Each room also has a text chat where users can exchange messages. 

Tinder-style “friend matching”

This feature allows you to set preferences for finding a “friendship” or a “relationship,” and whether you’re looking for women or men of various ages. Users that sign up between the ages of 13–17 are limited to interacting with other children in that same age range. This gets complicated when users lie about their ages, though.  

Aggressive in-game purchases 

Every time you exit a room you have the option to “tip host” as a way to say thank you to the creator who made the room. Kids may not understand what this means, or will think it’s mandatory. There’s also an entire section of the app dedicated to shopping with credits you purchase with real-life money. With these credits, you buy room decorations, furniture, clothes, and more. 

Potential scams

Because the in-game credits are so in demand, there are tons of scammers trying to trick people with the false promise of getting them for free. This may result in credit card scams, doxxing, and more.

Predation 🚨

The potential for predation is outrageously high on IMVU, especially considering that you can pretend to be whoever you want to be on the app. The terms of service state that it requires age verification via a photo of one’s ID or passport, but our team used the app for several hours without being prompted to do so. 

The intense sexual nature of most of the chat rooms also lends itself to an environment in which predation could and does thrive. In addition to conversing in chat rooms, you can also send a direct message called a “whisper” to other users. These whispers encourage private conversations between users, which can lead to jumps to other platforms like texting, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Privacy 🔒

There are no privacy controls in the game, so the only safeguard would be to have an unidentifiable username (i.e., no real names, school mascots, or birth years).

Parental Controls ✅

IMVU has no parental controls to speak of. You can block users who may be bothering you, but that’s it.

If IMVU isn’t something you feel comfortable with your kid using, you can block it from their devices using Bark’s app blocking feature.

So, should my kid download it?

They should not. What is IMVU’s main danger? Exposure to sexual content in many different ways on a platform that seems to exist only for the sexual gratification of strangers around the world.