#10- I like your other half

Since for this blog we had to create a whole new avatar to represent ourselves, I decided to play an online video game that I would normally never play. I went on to Yahoo! and played Chess. Yes believe it or not, I despise Chess and have avoided playing it ever since I was a little kid. The avatar I created was a complete opposite of myself. My avatar was tall with dark black hair and hazel eyes. The skin complexion was a nice caramel, any girls tropical vacation dream guy. I named my avatar a nice "rico suave" name, Ricardo. Right away as soon as I signed on to Yahoo! I fell right into the Ricardo mood. I felt because I had a very attractive image, I was super confident in myself and my social skills. I signed into the Chess site and began to play. My opponent messages me with a "hey" and from there we just kept talking back and forth. The game went really well and I didn’t win but I didn’t lose by much. I didn’t know how to play and the entire time kept asking this particular opponent for help and the rules of the game. I believe Yale and Bailenson’s findings and my own experience were very similar. My avatar was a very tall attractive individual and so was favored by my opponent. She gave me many desirable traits such as being really funny, smart and an open minded individual. I also felt as though she was very open with me sharing details about her life and experiences that I would normally not share with an individual. Yale and Bailenson also felt the same about self disclosure and attractiveness between two individuals.

"H2: Participants in the attractive condition would exhibit higher self-disclosure and present more pieces of information about themselves than participants in the unattractive condition."

My opponent seemed very indulged in my "avatars" looks as she continued investigating about my background, where I was from, my workout habits and my relationship status. All these comments, questions, and attractive vibes from my opponent only fed into my "Ricardo" persona. I felt very domineering in the game, as if I had control over it and could easily conquer. This remained even as it showed I clearly wasn’t with no clue in how to play chess. As soon as our game ended I signed onto another screen name with another avatar. My new avatar was named "Merlin" and he was short with scruffy hair, a small t-shirt that stretched over his potbelly and raggedy shorts that made him look a little taller than he actually was. I signed back into the same Monopoly section and searched to see if the same player I had went against previously was still on. Surprisingly she was and I rejoined her in a game. Right off the bat, the vibes were not consistent with our previous game. I thought since I knew the game I would have the same dominance, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t keep up much of a conversation and decided to end the game early. Hence, my avatar image affected our online interaction on Yahoo! Chess.

Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/10_im_barbie_girl_in_barbie_world.html

http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/10_bringing_fugly_to_another_level.html