some interesting ads I pulled from magazines today…
The first one I thought was interesting because it was an ad for some age defying product, but the ‘person’ is actually a mannequin. So… Are we striving to have skin like a mannequin? or is this some attempt to remove the pressure on the consumer to look like the (airbrushed) magazine models?
The next ad was just an awesome find. From the flawless pages of SELF magazine, I am proud to present the hottest new summer trend: NO BELLYBUTTONS!
“Change Anyone’s Mind: Want to convince someone she should follow your lead?”
yeah, I’m not following no bellybutton Betty anywhere.
Simply… hillarious.
I was reading CNN’s top headlines in my inbox and found an article on about merging one’s real and online self (how timely!).
It is about an artist who makes $10,000 a year (real money) on Second Life by performing in virtual clubs, CD sales through the site, tips, etc. Apparently there are many artists who make money by doing similar things on SL. They have booking agents, perform in virtual concerts, and even land up records deals with companies (in real life).
An artist was also talking about merging real life concerts with virtual concerts in SL by “setting up projection screens [in real concerts] that let the audience see the parallel concert as it streams into Second Life. In fact, she markets herself through fliers that say “Grace Buford is…Cylindrian Rutabaga in Second Life,” so that her fans can make the connection that she is the same person in real life and on SL.
Net effects and the future of the brain
I’m sitting in class, listening to Anne and what she is saying is reminding me of two reports from On the Media, both of which explore many of the issues she raises.
Frustrated by having to choose gender, all the rules.
Boring. Very empty. Very open-ended, not sure what to do.
Restricting, controls hard to use.
Twisted, ran into a weird role-playing area.
Compared to WoW, found SL much more suitable.
Sign-up process was interesting. What are people looking for?
Creepy. Was rescued by a female character from a male character–even though the male wasn’t really doing anything. Creepy because couldn’t see the person, couldn’t figure what they wanted.
Interested in how islands are laid out.
Replicated first life on second life.
Like being lost in the mall. Wished I’d known about BMC’s island.
Most of the questions/responses from Monday were really about the boundary between the body and the virtual world.
An avatar is actually the embodiment of a deity. To what degree are our avatars descents or expansions?
Me: thinking about third spaces.
The debate:
Arguing that what you do online is not what you do offline. Example of LiveJournal strikeout of 2007. At the request of a right-wing group, LJ deleted thousands of accounts on the grounds of suspected pedophilia.
Some might argue that there is no distinction between online and offline.
The self extends into anywhere where the imagination can go.
Is there an actual coherent self?
Photographs are representations that are separated from physical matter. In the same way, avatars are separated from physical matter.
Is there a real Anne? Or is the person at the front of the room a represenation or part of Anne?
My avatar is like a doll/puppet interacting with other dolls/puppets. I am the puppet master. (Hillary)
We have certain expectations of photographs vs. avatars.
Which gender option do you think I have selected?
So I have spent alot of time in second life because two summers ago I helped build part of Bryn Mawr’s campus there. It’s really pretty so you should all check it out. If you have second life when you click on MAP you can search for Teaching 3 then you click teleport. We own part of the island, but it’s pretty obvious which part it is. Any way I thought I would share some pics of it and a nice picture of my Avatar and Alex’s avatar together on Bryn Mawr’s campus.
One of the issues that came up during our creation of a MUD character was how exactly to represent ourselves/our character through text alone. (How) is this different than using a visual avatar like those displayed this week? We discussed how an avatar of any sort can be used to fulfill a player’s fantasy of themselves to create a Mary Sue – a representation whose sole purpose is that of self gratification. Perfect hair, perfect body, perfect everything – perfect according to society, of course. On the other hand, an avatar can explore aspects of ourselves that we usually push away, or we feel like others don’t fully acknowledge. On the other other hand, sometimes a character is just a character and the avatars we make are understood not to be ourselves.
As far as gender roles online are concerned, we questioned if the use of a certain gendered avatar would elicit similar responses online as they might in the real world – is a female in Azeroth treated the same as one in America? In my experience playing the MMORPG World of Warcraft, other players generally assumed that I was male regardless of which gendered avatar I created at the beginning of the game, and that I had chosen a female avatar for perverse aesthetic reasons.
Finally, online relationships… we had more questions than answers. Before discussing any realtionship, on or offline, you have to collect data. What sort of relationship is it (friendship, romantic, sexual)? How long has it been going on? Where did it come from, and what are the motives of either partner? Social interact online gets a bad rap because the first things we think of are 40 year olds who live with their basement off their parents’ salery to play WoW all day because he’s too socially inept to do anything else.. or that same 40 year old stalking prepubescent girls by pretending to be a young girl himeself. (Why is it always a 40 year old? Isn’t that ageist?) Even sites like Match.com or eHarmony are based around eventually getting together in real life, because who could possibly have a fulfilling relationship online?
Personally I’ve never seen a romantic online relationship end well, but I have had several friendships that have lasted upwards of three and four years in which I have either eventually met the person or just never met them at all. I consider these girls to be as close friends as anyone I’ve met in the flesh. The more I think about it, the more I don’t truly see a difference. Both relationships have a degree of danger to them – online, you aren’t able to visually verify who a person is (as far as age and sex go), but offline a person can physically hurt you. Both relationships start out as two individuals uniting from a common interest, often within a larger group (whether it’s a club meeting or LJ comunity) and require work to maintain – talking, emotional support, a creative sounding board. Both also require navigating through defenses we set up when dealing with other people, because you’ll never know someone on or offline the first time you meet them. Tearing down defenses for a relationship takes a long time. We already use avatars to represent ourselves in real life, they’re just generally tailored closer to our biological bodies than those we create online.
Unlike some of my classmates, I don’t think Second Life is so bad. The problem with virtual “realities” verses other types of technology is that we tend to have higher expectations. I didn’t go into to this with high expectations.
That being said, I seemed to have a pretty good experience in Second Life. I didn’t have any trouble finding people once I entered the game, in fact I HAD trouble being alone. The two most interesting avatars I came across were a robot man and a women with some sort of glowing light rod thing that she kept swinging around. What made them even more interesting is that they were speaking to each other and one o f them was speaking in Portuguese (It was fun and interesting watching the translation ).
I got very weirded out when, the first time I teleported, I ended up here. It was disturbing. (Is that a shark, zeppelin or what at the top of the screen?) Then I figured out I was under water.
It was strange seeing how empty these places were. I saw very few people, and even fewer interacting with one another. The interactions I had were limited to saying hello. I was really surprised by how awkward I felt – no one could tell it was me, and yet I felt hugely embarassed when I accidentally walked straight into someone. Designing the avatar was also a weird process, especially (I thought) the sliders for body weight. I really feel like in a lot of these kinds of games you have to choose between skinny and unattractive, like in the Sims where you’re either skinny or you have skinny legs and a BIG belly. This was a little better, but I think it’s an interesting representation of how we understand our bodies. The tools require you to represent a body in a particular way, and I wonder if that in turn can effect how you understand bodies.
I went onto SecondLife and made this avatar named Lily123456 Button. I was confused the entire time. I was a bit apprehensive going into this virtual world, but I never imagined it would be so complicated. I thought I would get to design my own avatar and then I would choose a world and maybe talk with some people. Instead, I never figured out how to customize my avatar so I was stuck with the one I chose. I went through the tutorial and learned how to fly, but never understood how you go into different stores or worlds. In the end, I must say my experience was very frustrating. I have played video games before, but this was a new virtual realm for me. I did not enjoy it. I don’t think I will be back anytime soon. I’ll stick with reality.
RE: Second Life
I would like to express my frustration with the whole customizing your avatar thing from the first screen. Not only is it difficult, but editing certain articles of clothing have the averse effect of forcing you to remove them. One of the other people in the tutorial zone spent about 10 minutes “shouting” at my avatar, “No tienes pantalones!”
So, despite getting off to a rocky start (i.e. getting clipped inside a building for about a 1/2 an hour), I actually (I really hesitate to use this word) enjoyed myself playing Second Life. I found some free accessories/clothes/hair, so I went crazy. For a while, I ran around in a full ball-gown with neon green hair.
I found it interesting that the most entertaining aspect of playing thus far was the customization and creation of the outfits. Instead of it being an online interaction, I felt more like I was playing the Sims.
I had some interaction with people, besides the Pants Guy, including some guy who apparently thought I was a Mod (does Second Life have those), and another who wanted either cyber sex, or a watch. The grammar and spelling were bad enough that I gave up trying to translate.
Also, there are a lot of mature islands. I think I actually came across a sex dungeon/bondage island(?) (which is one of the closest islands to the avatar creation site, huh), but there was no one there. Also, I found a group gathering and discussing their purple penis hovercraft. That entertained me for some time.
I will be interested to hear about other people’s experiences tomorrow.
EDIT: I removed the images because they’re too large and the website can’t support them.
The issue of self-censorship came up in class on Monday in relation to what we choose to represent or leave out about ourselves online. Immediately I thought of Exposing the Censor Within from the National Coalition Against Censorship (where I’m interning this summer!). It’s a traveling exhibition in real life that asks people to write anonymous notes about times when they’ve self-censored. The fantastic part is that this project is also a “place” in Second Life. You can visit it through the link above. I haven’t actually done it yet, but I plan to try and report back.
As far as my own SL experience so far, I agree with Laura, it’s very counter-intuitive and awkward when you’re a newbie! I went into the Spanish world and I was talking to a 19 yr old woman from Colombia (maybe?) who gave me some free clothes, but they sounded strange and I couldn’t really figure out how to use them. As Mista Jay points out with her photos, there’s so much text to deal with! But I’m really intrigued and want to explore more.
Sorry that this is a little late! However, I’ve been a little busy this week:( Anyway, I started to make my avatars on all of the sites that Laura gave us when I decided that I did not really like the way some of the sites worked. So here is one from meez.com:
And here is one from sp-studio.de, which creates a South Park style avatar!
I’m with you Solomon , I’m no good at Second Life either! Here are some screen shots of my experience:
Flying was cool, I have to admit.
This is about the time my head started to spin–so many boxes and instructions….
Then someone who had the same avatar as me ran up to me…but didn’t say anything. Except send me a friend invite.
Then just as I was about to leave, a man (or is he?) started to speak to me and after talking for a short while he asked me if I was new. I said that I was, and he invited me to “explore SL” with him. I accepted because I had no idea what I was doing. The FIRST thing he asked after I accepted was my age, which I didn’t give and then he said he was 40 and that he hoped I didn’t mind. Again, I didn’t answer him. By then I was ready to leave the game, but then “Candy,” my avatar twin, found me again and we all started to local chat. She was lost & confused too like me (and ended up making herself bald in the game later on) so he offered to help us both and teleported us to get “freebie” items. I took about, 2 things…it was really crowded. I couldn’t even teleport properly…when I arrived at the destination I couldn’t figure out how to land properly.
One of the things that “nessie Elton” said that I thought was interesting was when both Candy and I showed intrest in getting new clothes (my starting outfit made me want to cry), and he said “To get clothes u have to have money….to make money u have to look good.” I don’t know, I think it just struck me as a very honest way of putting things.
Also, I wondered if “nessie Elton” would have helped me if I were male? Also, he seemed awfully persistant in getting me to change clothes. He even found a “school girl” outfit for me, and noted that there was lingerie around as well. I left shortly after that.
And that concludes my adventures in SL! It was way more confusing then i thought it would be…and I kind of understand where Laura was comming from on Monday after talking about her nude experience in the game–when I teleported to the room full of people, I felt a bit shy…just as I would feel if I went into a room full of people in real life. Even in talking to “nessie Elton,” who did creep me out a bit, a part of me kept saying: “Be polite, be polite, be polite!” as I would try to be IRL. That is, until I felt too uncomfortable and just left.
Okay, I FINALLY made some avatars. I was telling my group the other day that I have difficulty with avatars because I spend way too much time trying to make them look exactly like me. I spent excruciating amounts of time over the weekend trying to choose the right hairstyle, skin color, nose, etc. but it did not really work the way I wanted it to, so I gave up. Today, I just hit whatever looked kind of interesting, even if it wasn’t exactly me.
I know it’s silly, but I cannot escape the compulsion to accurately represent myself, even if it is “just the internet”, which is why I never do avatars. They are stressful. I can’t lie to the internet, even if it does present the opportunity. I would probably never wear a ringmaster jacket though.
