Since I was put on this earth with flawless bone structure and a chiseled body, I decided that my little stint in Second Life should be different, refreshing, and new…and HIDEOUS. With the fitting name Ogre, I created an avatar with scary hair, poor fashion sense, and a diminutive stature that screamed creepy! Now that I had an avatar with less than desirable features, I was ready to make the world my oyster; the second life world that is.
Right off the bat, my second life interactions could be described as somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy with a side order of behavioral confirmation—a intensification of loop of sorts. I took my avatar appearance to heart and my initial encounters were filled with me just being creepy. I let the clashing clothing and midget stature get to my head and acted the part a little too much. This was encouraged with behavioral confirmation as other second lifers treated me…well, fugly! (And I acted in kind and followed suit). Like Yee and Bailenson said, “[an] avatar is not simply a uniform that is worn, the avatar is our entire self representation” (p. 274).
Initially, the results found in the Yee and Bailenson study were consistent with my experience in the Collaborative Virtual Environment. In general, other avatars in second life tended to not be that friendly to me, creating greater interpersonal distances—they kept their distance from the hideous Ogre. Additionally, the conversations I took part in were kept very brief and formal, leaving little to no self disclosure. This is in agreement with the study’s fining that more attractive avatars enjoyed more self disclosure and closer avatar-avatar distances, all which were statistically significant results. The behavior evident in both my experience in the study is known as the Proteus Effect. Although in some ways, the Proteus Effect is similar to SIDE theory, there are various points of difference including the self-perception theory. According to this theory, irregardless of how other individuals—or avatars—would act toward me, I would still act out in the same way. This is because I would be perceive and evaluate myself from a third party perspective and would not necessarily require the presence of others or a group—like in SIDE.
However, as I spent a little more time in the strange, strange land of second life, evidence of the Proteus Effect decreased dramatically. Perhaps I was growing bored of acting like the pariah I wanted my avatar to be and began acting more normal. This would, in turn, lead to others treating me less like how the Yee and Bailenson study predicted and more normal. Other second lifers might even have the CMC literacy, maturity, and savvy to look past the appearance of an avatar, knowing full well that this virtual representation may have very little credibility and accuracy. Nonetheless, I am sure that if chose to take the less obnoxious route, making my avatar at least average looking and not heinous and repulsive, I would have had more robust conversations and interactions in my initial experience in Second Life. If only all the other second lifers knew that Mr. Ogre loved Kenny G, pottery, and Jodi Picoult books…if only.
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3 comments:
I really like your post. I think it’s great that you decided to create an avatar that was in essence your opposite to explore Second Life. You do a really good job explaining how the avatar’s appearance leads to behavioral confirmation and the intensification loop, causing you to continually act more and more like the others treated you in Second Life. You also tie in the results from Yee and Bailenson study and connect your experience to the Proteus Effect that they describe very well. I thought it was interesting to see that the opposite of their results is also true (in your case) that an unattractive/fugly avatar can cause you to stand farther away and not be able to self disclose as much. Good job.
Well lets just say that you have the confidence to be your own avatar lol. Your avatar being “fugly” must have been a whole new world. Yee and Bailenson’s hypothesis definitely played out in your experiences. You had unfriendliness and great social distance placed between yourself and other avatars which is very consistent with the idea of “fugly”ness. Your avatar was not able to self-disclose to people as an effect of that social distance. I agree with you that if your avatar was not repulsive, you probably would have had much better conversations and connections with other avatars.
Matt,
I figure since you have been a regular contributor to my comments section I should return the favor. Good job on your post, I think it is funny because you did the exact opposite of what I did in creating a less than ideal avatar. What I find really interesting are people who actually choose a less than ideal representation in Second Life. If anybody could self selectively choose what they look like why would anybody want to appear less than ideal or completely unattractive? I mean I can understand if somebody wants to be give an honest representation of themselves but anything worse than that would be a good subject for a psychological study. With that said do you ever think that Collaborative Virtual Environments are going to ever become popular if people are able to choose their appearance? Through you could argue that because everybody thinks they look so good in Second Life there will be more social interactions. I am going also to bet I will never meet a hideous Second Life avatar that is actually a smokin’ hot girl with that flawless bone structure.
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