Reflective Post for Week of 3/26

On Wednesday of this week’s class, we looked at some websites that allow you to create avatars, I believe they’re called. Before this class, I really wasn’t familiar with any of these websites, so it was something different. It was really cool to see how into it people get, and how many different websites like that are out there. It was also interesting to see how many generalizations the class came up with about the true identities of the characters that were all in that room together. We can make guesses about the real identities of the people who created them, but we might be entirely wrong in the end—the question that it comes down to is whether or not people try to match their true personalities to the avatars they create. This goes back to concepts such as online identities, multiple identities, and other ideas we’ve been talking about in class. Some people might be trying to show true aspects of their identity, thereby matching their avatar closely to who they really are. Other people might be using such a website as an escape, creating a completely different type of person than they are in real life. This would be a form of identity play. Whatever type of person you create, though, each one has symbolic markers associated with them, and other online gamers are bound to make judgments about the type of person you are based on the features of the avatar you create. All in all, I’d say that it is impossible to know for sure just who you’re dealing with when it comes to things like avatars, but it’s interesting to see the types of identities that come out through the characters.

Even though I’ve never had any personal experience dealing with these kinds of websites, I can relate a little bit, because I’ve been around people who play the Sims computer game. Although I think the idea of controlling somebody’s life is entirely stupid and pointless, my roommate plays this game a lot, as well as the twin girls I’ve baby-sat for the past two summers. There are a lot of different options for making your “Sim character” stand out from others. You can pick out different outfits, hairstyles, etc. I don’t understand the attraction of such games, but I guess for a lot of people the idea of escaping reality and living someone else’s life has a certain appeal to it. Personally, though, I’m happy enough with my own life that I don’t feel the need to create a new identity through any kind of virtual game. :-)