Untitled+Avatars

=Avatars=

toc //Your appearance now is what we call residual self image.// //It is the mental projection...of your digital self.// - Morpheus, The Matrix



Avatars are actually the digital projection of one's self in Second Life. After forming your account with Linden Labs, downloading the browser, and logging on you are placed onto an 'orientation island' where you are able to create your own avatar. Many people put a great deal of care into the appearance of their avatar - while others put very little.

Identity


For some, the avatar is literally the digital projection of their mental self. They 'are' their avatar, or more correctly, their avatar 'is' them. This often translates to creating the avatar to most accurately represent their own appearance, and projecting their own personality through the avatar in their interactions with other people. This leads to stark differences in how people relate to their avatars. Some individuals come right through the 'fourth wall' of their computer screen and more easily immerse themselves in Second Life. Often these are the people we find more easily communicating and entering into Second Life social groups.

For those who do not project themselves into their avatars, there is a sense of detachment from both their Second Life persona and the virtual world of the grid. In some ways these individuals are visitors in a strange land, interacting with Second Lifers with this specie of avatar-identity display a kind of digital depersonalization disorder in their interactions with other avatars - more often than not, they are only temporary visitors to the grid and do not remain active users. A common criticism from long-term Second Lifers is that the newer users are impersonal, not as attached to the grid, not as interested in customizing their avatar, and do not value their avatars as a creation or as a digital projection of themselves. These short-term Second Lifers tend to experience anomie as they spend more time in Second Life, which eventually leads to their inactivity.

The essential difference here is that some people use their avatar as a 'space-suit' to explore and interact within a digital environment, while others use their avatars like marionettes. This leads to substantial differences in the way people develop and act towards their avatars.

Customization and Modification
Perhaps the most compelling thing about Second Life is how intricately one can modify one's own avatar. Long-term Second Lifers take full advantage of this fact and customize their avatars into radically altered appearances. New, inexperienced users may feel a little intimidated as their plain t-shirt-and-jeans-wearing avatars are faced with furries, predatory animals, Transformers, and mythical beasts.



More experienced and sophisticated users collect skins, which are different textures users can easily switch between to instantly change the appearance of their avatar. This can be disorienting to the new user as an experienced new acquaintance may change skins multiple times within a period of a few minutes. This also means that physical identity, as far as appearance is concerned, is in some ways less important in Second Life. If one becomes unhappy with the way one looks, it takes only a few minutes of work to find a new look. Status in Second Life is not necessarily based totally on appearance.

Furthermore, this leads to a very different value system between Second Life users. Some areas encourage certain forms of attire. In a role-play area avatars are generally expected to wear appropriate skins - in the Dune - Arakkis area SL users are expected to be dressed as characters from the Dune Universe, whether they be stilsuit wearing Fremen or armor-suit wearing Sardaukar. In the Star Wars roleplaying areas stil-suits would be completely out of place, but Imperial Storm Trooper armor or Rebel Alliance flightsuits would be appropo. One's access to these areas is highly dependent on one's ability to procure or construct proper attire. Finding such skin textures often costs a lot of L$.

Value


As previously noted, the mutability of appearance in SL leads to a different set of values. Though avatars cannot normally be judged and segregated by the same discriminations that real life communities often use, there are still standards and expectations as we see in the role-play areas. In-world moderators and 'referees' enforce these standards. You can't get evicted from Second Life for your appearance, however, an inappropriately dressed or skinned avatar may find his or herself teleported out of an area by a moderator.

The ability to alter the appearance of one's avatar also adds another layer of disconnect between a person and the immersive digital world. In real life we are faced with our bodies and the limits of their ability to change and alter to meet our needs. Real people cannot alter their height or skin color very easily, nor can they change their girth or gender without radical surgical procedures. Stable, health individuals in real life must become comfortable within their bodies in order to be truly happy, and this integrates the mind and spirit into the body into one holistic entity. The 'ladies' pictured in the section above are from the Transgendered Resource Center. Interacting with them on the grid would seem no different than interacting with any other woman out on the grid. There is no discernible difference in Second Life - in some ways, it is more liberating for people who face real life identity and image problems.

On the grid there is no need to identify with the avatar's appearance because it is by nature transient. At the very least, most Second Lifers regularly change their avatar's clothing and hair. Many also choose more radical alterations in body size, type, and facial structure. I believe that by doing so people are able to completely sever the connection between avatar and self. Hence, entire communities of avatars which value the appearance of disrepair, chaos, poverty, and dirtiness appear from time to time on the grid.

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