That's me. I'm the little one.
No, I'm not a child avatar. I'm not a tiny or a fairy or any kind of furry. I'm five feet two inches tall, fine boned and angular, with big hands and feet and long arms and legs---just like I am in Real Life. As a matter of fact, I look a whole lot like I do in Real Life, measurement for measurement.
But in Real Life, I just don't look that small.
In Real Life, I'm a little shorter than average, and quite a bit smaller boned. I'm leggy and lanky. I can't wear petite sizes because my inseam is too long. Women's gloves are too short in the fingers for me most of the time. But here I am, in a crowd of avatars, looking positively Lilliputian.
I can guess how it happens that most newbies are big. The default avatars are very tall, and if you set the sliders to fifty (seems like average, right?) a female avatar is six feet even and a male avatar is six foot four. It's like the guy who set the scale for prims and the guy who made the avatar mesh and sliders weren't talking to each other, and the whole thing came together a little off kilter.
Combine that starting point with a tendency to value height as a symbol of power or confidence, and you get seven foot women and eight foot men. Since there is no yardstick to counteract it, people just don't know, as newbies, how tall they are. I understand how it happens.
But why, after you've been in world for a while and you know how tall you are, do you choose to remain that big? Why does it stick? Why is nearly every avatar in the whole second world almost twice my height?
I want input. I want feedback. Are you bigger or smaller than the willowy masses? What influenced your decision? How did you decide to be the height that you are?
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