Journal Task

Played Second life a bit more, and have had several interactions with other users. Received items, such as a "vampire bite" that had the interesting effect of causing you to appear dead for a while... the chat system is alright, but a bit confusing because you sometimes don't know if someone's talking to you or to someone nearby.

Here are some screenshots of my developing character, including the interesting one where I lost my avatar's hair. :)


This isn't really new to me, since I've already designed my avatar to use in virtual realities, so I basically modelled this version on her already.

The way I see it is that your (or my) avatar is whatever you want it to be. It's how you see yourself in a way, because it will be the representative for what you say. It allows you to be how you feel inside without the restrictions of how you actually look. It's unique to the online world, where you're protected with anonymity. This is seen frequently in psychological studies where people in groups, or online, behave more aggressive because they are not 'them', have no background or reputation and there are, essentially, no consequences to their actions. Many believe this is because anonymity causes people to become more aggressive. I believe that this is not the case and that people feel freer to do what they please. I suppose what you could say is that the worst that could happen is that you get banned from a particular website, game or forum. Or rather, that your one (of many possible) identity(/ies) is banned, leaving you free to ignore it and move on or try again. This is the same in that your virtual self can live out how you really want to be without the threat of losing your job, your reputation or even death in some cases. There is a safety aspect, which is quite sad as it shows how honesty in society isn't valued as much as fitting in would be.

This is why identities are important in media such as games and online worlds, however, because now it can be our only outlet and true representation if we want to be completely socially accepted.