For this assignment I decided to create an avatar in the virtual environment known as Second Life. I’m pretty unfamiliar with online video games such as this. The closest I’ve come to playing games like this was The Sims, but I never played online with other characters and such. I decided to use Second Life based on my limited knowledge of the game from an episode of The Office that I saw this year. In the episode, Dwight was going through a breakup and turned to Second Life to detach himself from reality, creating a world within the game called Second Second Life. Since I knew that Second Life was the most logical transition from my limited gaming experience with the Sims, I decided to create an avatar within this virtual environment.
I decided to create an avatar that significantly different than my appearance in real life. I am actually a 19-year-old girl, 5’4”, with curly auburn hair, but my avatar was a 5’8”, balding, overweight man. I wanted to create an avatar that could possibly impact my degree of socialization. I thought that if I decided to be a man within Second Life, I may be more dominant and aggressive within the social environment, but if I made myself less traditionally attractive, my confidence would diminish. During my limited time playing Second Life, it was amazing to me how life-like the virtual environment really is. There were so many design options when creating an avatar, and so many choices as to what to do inside the world.
It was interesting playing in Second Life under this avatar, and I can safely say my behavior was affected, much more than I thought it would. Most notably, while I was in a club scene, I was one of the least attractive avatars in the environment. Not only did this make me less confident to initiate conversation, but people were not exactly clamoring to start talking to me either. According to Yee & Bailenson, “the Proteus Effect may impact behavior on the community level.” In other words, this social club scene made perfect sense. Gather a bunch of attractive avatars and the scene should be buzzing. I definitely felt like the odd man out. Yee & Bailenson go on to state, “As graphical avatars become the dominant mode of self-representation in virtual environments, the Proteus Effect may play a substantial role in encouraging hyperpersonal interaction.” My perceptions of the other avatars were extremely exaggerated positively in comparison to the extreme self-consciousness I felt about my own avatar. After playing under an unattractive avatar, it’s easy to see for me why I was one of the few who decided to look less than stellar.
Comment 1 and Comment 2
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Hi Eden. I think that your experience in playing Second Life illustrates the concepts about Gender in CMC, as well as the concepts put forth by Yee and Bailenson in their 2007 study, “The Proteus Effect.” I think that it is interesting that you chose an avatar that is both dramatically different from you, and unattractive. Though I am still skeptical that creating an avatar of a specific physical nature may change the way one acts, your gaming experience definitely supports Yee and Bailenson’s finding in the “Proteus Effect.”
Eden-
I totally saw that episode of The Office which influenced my choice to use Second Life for this assignment too! I thought it was so cool that Dwight could fly that I wanted to try it out for myself. Anyways, I found it interesting that you not only changed genders, but made yourself an unattractive, balding man. You did a great job throwing yourself into an unknown situation to fully test Yee and Bailenson’s research. Also, you made a good choice at putting yourself in a very social club scene that was occupied by only attractive avatars. It is such a shame that you were not approached because I would be curious to see what people would actually say to you had they approached you or had you approached them. Your experience definitely supports the Proteus Effect and definitely proves how much of a role attractiveness plays in our society.
You really went the compete other direction by being a balding ugly guy. I think the fact that you purposefully chose to be unattractive and then went to place where you knew only attractive people would be found might cloud your judgment, and you would knowingly act intimidated. It's almost like you were knowingly confirming the Proteus effect. I'm sure it would have happened anyway, though, so it does not really matter. It was really great work putting yourself in such a completely different situation than that available to you in real life.
Eden—I think it is very interesting that you decided to create an unattractive avatar in a space that is highly focused on social interaction and perhaps attraction. I like how you touched on confidence and self-disclosure by saying you weren’t confident enough to initiate conversation and also that people weren’t really approaching you. In addition to the fact that you didn’t feel comfortable approaching others, you also never really had a chance to exchange information with them since strangers weren’t willing to develop an intimate relationship with you. I think that aside from the Proteus Effect, behavioral confirmation definitely played a role in your situation. Since others didn’t approach you, you probably began to feel like the “odd man out” partially due to your avatar’s appearance but also due to how you were treated. I also think that it is interesting that you developed positive perceptions of the other avatars based on their attractiveness, despite their unfriendly behaviors. These virtual environments definitely have many complex layers to look into! Great job!
Eden,
First, nice reference to the office! That is a great show and a great episode!
I think that you do a great job of relating your second life experience to Yee & Bailenson. The fact that you used an avatar completely different from your appearance in real life was a good idea. I did not even think of creating an avatar of the opposite sex but certainly your description of the club scene led to examples of how Yee & Bailenson's theory proved to be true. I find it interesting that when using second life, knowing the avatar is simply a character, the Proteus Effect applies.
Overall, great description and great post!
Hey Eden,
So what originally stood out to be was that your avatar reminded me of Dwight on the office! Granted, I am not an avid watcher so the vague description seemed similar to my memory of Dwight. Nevertheless, what I found interesting was that you went into the situation expecting to feel more dominant as a male, yet also expecting to be treated differently since you choose to be not as traditionally attractive. What I am curious about is what if you had went into it with the mindset of a 19 year old 5'4" teenager who has the confidence to get out there on the dance floor! Do you think you limited the possibilities because you considered yourself less attractive to begin with? Who knows, maybe there is an avatar out there looking for that overweight balding man! (lol) Nonetheless, I definitely agree that looks are still hard to overcome because of the realistic nature of these gaming environments. I think that you did a great job relating your experience to the Proteus Effect. Overall, I think your decision to go against the trend and instead of making an extremely attractive avatar, you choose the other extreme. Cool job!
Eden,
That was a great idea to choose an avatar that not only poorly represents you, but forced you to switch into the mindset of a man. I also found that making my avatar less traditionally atttractive had an impact on my gaming confidence, so I am not surprised that you found similar results. It is easy now to see how people can get so cought up in this game because of the control you are given.
Great post. I think you did a great job describing your experience.
Post a Comment