I feel like this is more about how FFXIV truly tailors towards second-lifeesque characteristics and brings communities that are more inclined to enjoy games such as The Sims and other simulations games. The amount of fashion customization and the high quality of animations make this possible. Thus, you get more people interested in these aspects of the game instead of other MMOs.

If you're familiar with the sims community, animal crossing, poupée and that famous mobile dress-up game and other simulations-like games this is not uncommon.

We're also in a more visual era, there's a huge amount of communities that loves doing storytelling through screenshots in a lot of different games. This isn't much different from "fakes" you had in social media back in the day like myspace, orkut, etc. It's a creative thingy that it's been getting bigger and bigger given how easier it is nowadays to edit a photo and make an instagram and such.

Personally, I don't believe that the whole "escape from real life" thing. I play the game because it's my hobby, NOT my escape. A leisure isn't a escape from your life, it's just a leisure. If anything I feel like people bring very little of their real life inside the game and act like they're inside a bubble where they can only talk and discuss things that are game-related or about their own character, which makes the whole social part of the game really boring. I kinda miss when I actually made friends with people that played games and not their characters tbh.