Online Identities

For my avatar in Second Life, I tried to make it as close to me as possible. The way I present my self in person is closely linked with my identity, so I wanted to try to maintain that presentation online. I'm not that adept at manipulating the avatar, but I chose some normal clothes, jeans and a purple shirt, and a brown ponytail for my avatar. However, she is built like a Barbie doll, with long thick fabulous hair and ice blue eyes. This is not really reflective of my own appearance, which I feel a little weird about. I don't wear tight clothes, I don't wear contacts, I don't straighten my hair, because that's not how I see myself, which makes my avatar a little weird. I'm sure that if I worked harder, I could get her glasses and a different haircut, but the point still stands, there's only so much you can do. I guess the other option would be to go for a total fantasy, like make myself Han Solo or something. But frankly, I don't want people to think that I'm Han, I want them to think that I am a normal young woman. Interaction online can be difficult for me, because I don't know how other people feel about their representations. I'm fairly good at reading people in person, but this is almost impossible online. I don't usually interact online with people I don't know offline, so this is a fairly new area for me, and I am curious how my feelings will change as I do it more.

Second Life

So, I've been trying to start using Second Life. I would say I've mostly succeeded, except in that I kind of dislike it. It seems like a really lame game with all the fiddly controls but nothing to do. I managed to figure out how to move and change my clothes, even found myself a pair of jeans, which was a relief. However, I find the world fairly ugly to look at and difficult to figure out. It also makes me nervous to just have all kinds of people around who can see what I'm doing, like when I fall off the stairs because I can't work the controls yet. I also had someone run into me repeatedly and then told me not to walk away, when all I wanted to do was figure out how to work my inventory and controls. I had another person who I couldn't see give me a rose. This kind of interaction made me uncomfortable because I don't know how people are supposed to interact on Second Life. I know in real life this would not be okay, and I don't like that there isn't anyway for me to like, hide or whatever. I find the whole thing very weird. Maybe if I found more things to do, or went on trying to find people to talk to, it would be more fun. Who knows?