I had really never heard of second life until a recent episode of The Office, where Dwight creates a second life account which is essentially Dwight in real life, only he can fly.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EFC0926746844D0E
Personally, I thought this concept was hilarious but I wasn't intrigued enough to go on to second life and create an account (I didn't even know it really existed). Instead, when Professor Hancock told us to create an avatar on second life, I misunderstood him. I asked the person next to me, "Did he say he wants us to suck at life?" This may or may not have been a Freudian slip- just kidding! Thus starts my encounter with Second Life.
After creating an account on Second Life, I began my journey as an avatar. First, I chose my generic appearance and opted to go with the female who looked most similar to me: dark long hair with a smaller, thinner frame. After transforming from my initial period of nakedness (how embarrassing), I made my way to the "appearance tutorial" where I attempted to dress and mold my avatar. This process reminded me of when I was younger and picking clothes for my Barbies. I really spent far too much time switching outfits, textures and hair color. Basically, the majority of my time was spent altering my avatar's appearance, I'm not going to lie. My avatar remained very similar to my physical features in real life: petite frame, heart shaped face, brown hair, brown eyes, etc. However, I did decide to make my avatar taller than I am. I'm 5'2, and I made my avatar 70 inches. After fine-tuning Avah's look (which I decided to call her), I went out to meet different avatar's. I decided it would be hilarious to just follow one guy around and see if he talked to me. When he walked, I followed, when he flew, I flew behind him. Eventually, he stopped and began a conversation. Unfortunately he was from Italy, so the language barrier restricted us from reaching our true avatar chemistry potential.
Following my experience with Iguisso, a Brazillian gentleman avatar approached me. We started having a conversation in English (phew) and we really hit it off. We talked about where we were from, the weather, how to work my car (in second life, although I could use some advice for my real life too), and eventually whether I had a boyfriend. What?!? This Brazilian had moves. After his question I quickly changed the subject and exited my session.
Throughout my entire second life experience, I found that I was doing things that I would never do in real life. I was stalking another avatar, hitting on a Brazilian avatar who was in essence, a complete stranger. I found that I was very outgoing (more so than in real life) and confident. After my experience on Second Life, I read the study by Yee and Bailenson.
In this study, I found that Second life is considered a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE), which is a communication system in which multiple interactants share the same three-dimensional digital space despite occupying remote physical locations. I found this when I never encountered one person from Italy and one from Brazil, these people were from all over the world. I also found Yee and Bailenson's study to be especially applicable to my own situation. They state that when an avatar is more attractive and taller, they tend to be more outgoing and confident. Behind my avatar, I felt invincible. I was definitely more confident and outgoing. I also found it interesting that I had chosen to alter my height, which, according to the study, leads to a more social, outgoing avatar personality. I was also consistent with Yee and Bailenson's claims in that I exhibited increased self-disclosure with my Brazilian friend.
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Awesome post Caton! I thought it was funny though how you had a second chance at life, and you chose to make an avatar that looks exactly like you; I guess you’re very comfortable in your own skin which is a good thing. Other braver and perhaps more mentally unstable 245’ers like myself and Austin Lin made hideous and sexually robust avatars—it was liberating, whew! I really enjoyed your self disclosure comments and accounts with foreign men. I guess something about you and your avatar just struck a nerve with these foreign lovers and made them say, “I must have her!” You did a nice job tying CVE’s into your blog.
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