This research paper was surprisingly interesting given it relates simply to the avatars, or characters a user creates in cyberspace. I found it interesting that so many of the studied users made their avatars similar to themselves in appearance because from my personal experience my avatars usually bear no physical resemblance to myself.
One new thing I learned from the article was that the username of a character was considered to be a form of identity expression. Because the creation of an avatar often means following certain presets, naming one’s avatar can be used to express the user’s self. This is also somewhat surprising to me considering most characters I see during online play have ridiculous (and sometimes) vulgar names for their avatars. I’m not sure what the basis for Second Life’s game play is, but if it is supposed to be a simulation of reality, this could explain the variance in avatar naming.
The most useful thing I read in the research paper was the authors’ belief that global hegemony affected the standards of avatar creation. The authors found that most avatars followed a Caucasian standard of beauty, with youthful characteristics, and were physically fit. This is useful because it shows that regardless of the creator’s culture, their avatar often reflected themselves, though with Caucasian standards of beauty in mind. This shows that the Western ideas of beauty are plaguing most peoples’ ideologies.
~T
I thought it was pretty interesting to see that most avatars followed the "caucasian" or western standards of beauty as well. I have definitely noticed how many users tend to create characters that are noticeable representations of themselves, but more often than not, they are also altered in some way to improve their identity to fit society's idea of what is desirable. In my opinion it is a little bit ridiculous, considering these are avatars and obviously not real people or identities, but it just goes to show how much trying to define our "identity" influences are actions.
ReplyDeleteI also play games that require making an avatar and in Sims I usually make my character resemble me, rarely do I make male characters. I also play WoW and my character is an female alien with blue skin I personally picked it because it looked cool. What I find interesting about WoW is that it is still a mostly male dominated game but there are a huge number of female avatars. I wonder what could be said about that? When I ask guys why they play female characters they say it is because the male version of the class looks stupid.
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