Horsley: ‘’It could be argued that simple binary gender gender-switching actually further entrenches traditionally held ideas, by suggesting that conventional roles are so firmly established that a person must simply pick one or the other, based on the package of qualities it comes with, and how appropriate these are for the situation at hand” (77).
While I was in Second Life, I created a female avatar, being female myself. I found that traditionally held ideas about how females should look and what makes them attractive stay pretty much the same in Second Life. For example, I, without thinking, created a much thinner avatar than what I am in real life. I believe this is because being skinny is so prized and admired in the real world. If I create a thin avatar, then people would probably talk to me more. This seems to be seen when I explore around, females tend to be thin, even though they might not be in real life. This was even true with me, people always stopped to talk to me, probably based on the fact that I was portraying my avatar as a thin one. The fact that there is even an option to change bust size on a female avatar gives people the opportunity to make them bigger, possibly in line with the belief that the bigger is more attractive in females. I changed my facial features to include bigger eyes and fuller lips, again probably unconciously going along with society’s view of an attractive female.
memenner said,
February 27, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Hi Angela,
Great insight about creating your avatar. I’m looking at this in my research paper for this class. You touched on one of the questions I have found most intriguing which is: is there pressure to create a sexy avatar? It would be interesting to see if you made your avatar heavy-set if less people would approach you “in world.”