In reading back over the comments left on those old posts, I am struck by those that say I'm trying to "make" avatars conform to a particular standard. I am completely flabbergasted by that. I don't see how that could be further from the truth. I just want to know what motivates people, what influences their decisions. What makes you who you are?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Forever and Ever....
It has been forever and ever since I have posted anything. It was one of the many projects I'm involved in that got totally sideswiped by pressing events in real life. But I would like to write this thing. I think the topic merits discussion and attention. Who, after all, are we? Why do we choose to be what we are? There is poetry in those decisions.
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In the great tradition of saying there are two kinds of people, I think that there are two kinds of SL residents when it comes to avatar choices.
ReplyDeleteFor one group, an avatar is like clothing, or a costume. (And it is, really, changeable at the drop of a folder.) They don't have any emotional investment in a shape... and putting it that way sure makes it sound like a healthy attitude, doesn't it?
The other group _is_ emotionally invested in their avatars. Some want their avatars to look like themselves in RL; for others, the avatar is oneself as one wishes one could be... so I guess maybe there are three types. ("Amongst the types of people in SL are such diverse elements as..." :))
OK, my "two types" are falling apart. It's probably really a continuum; even among those making their avatar look like themselves, how many resist the temptation to shave off some excess weight?
I think you are right, Melissa. There are those who are invested in their appearance and those who are not. Each of those groups has a bunch of sub-categories, too.
ReplyDeleteI think the standard dichotomy of immersion versus augmentation is spread over the two categories, as well, although I would bet that immersionists are primarily in the "invested in their appearance" category. Augmentationists, I would suppose, would be divided fairly evenly.
I am pretty clearly in the augmentationist category, and I admit I worked pretty hard on the appearance of my primary shape. But then sometimes I'm a cartoon panda, or a baby dragon, or a soot-colored crimson-eyed ghoul, or a hamster tiny. It doesn't bother me to drop a folder onto my avatar to become something else for the day or the week or until I get tired of it. And I think that makes me very different from a good friend of mine who only makes changes to her avatar to better approximate the image she has in her head.