Avatars and Identity II
1
Second part
plain
2013-07-14T20:46:21-07:00
I think that Second Life would prefer users to create an avatar based on themselves, as is pictured on the first page of the website.
This type of fantasy play is less fantasy, though: if you could choose to be anything, would you pick the same body? Equally fascinating is how the game is based on consumerism; I quickly found that in order to change my outfit I had to procure imaginary dollars to purchase goods at the store.
The Nakumara article did a great job of explaining how fantasy worlds recreate social inequities and hierarchies. I have seen the video she references in the article, and it is quite appalling. Being a non-gamer, I had no idea that racialized manual labor was used to create real jobs for novice gamers overseas. This truly blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
Turkle's article made helped me reflect on how I am projecting myself in my avatar or what I hope to be...clearly I picked something not at all like myself, though I could have picked an animal character to be even more fantasy-driven.
