Assignment 10: Creating myself, unknowingly

I, like many others in class, are not gamers whatsoever. I was, at first, completely intimidated of this assignment. In fact, I didn’t even know where to go about playing one such game. I figured these environments are expensive games that must be bought. Little did I know it only took a Google search for the phrase, “Second Life” before I was on my way. Being a newbie I took the easy route and began creating and playing around in Linden Labs. To my amazement, I was very surprised at the relative ease of use, great graphics, and HUGE amount of control we had over our own experience.

My first action was to create a name. Not fully sure of what this meant or how it would effect my interactions for the next hour, I went with probably the most awkward gender neutral name I could think of, Rabbit Gabardini. Next I was prompted to decide my gender. Interestingly, the thought of being anything other than myself didn’t come into mind until I read some of the other blogs, in which males were females, intentionally fat, super tall, or perfectly “hot.” So as a result, I went on creating my avatar as though he was me. Likewise, I had his actions reflect my own actions. I didn’t really try flying until I was asked to, because, we’ll I don’t fly. Instead, I went through the tutorial in an obedient and studious way, much like I would follow the instructions on a test, or not talk out of turn in lecture. Additionally, while creating the appearance of my avatar, I dressed him similar to me, creating his features as though they were an extension of my own. I am not a confrontational person in anyway. I even felt bad when I walked into someone’s avatar and sort of pushed them around (by mistake). To my disappointment, I was unable to find someone to speak with. I could be wrong (As I was not completely sure of what I was doing since the controls and game was new to me), but I believe at some point I even put out a general call to anyone saying “hello, any one else new at this and want to chat?” -- No response. This conversation would have really helped me in determining how Yee & Bailenson’s description of the Proteus Effect effected me. They described this effect as, “the effect of transformed self-representation on behavior.”

Despite any lack of communication, I did get a solid feeling of how my avatar effected my actions. My avatar was an extension of myself. As a result, he, that is Rabbit Gabardini, acted like me since he, in my mind, was representing myself in this online environment. As a result, I did not feel deindividuated. Yee & Bailenson discuss deindividuation theory, and how Zimbardo (1996) used it. I completely agree with Yee and Bailenson that it, “can lead to both prosocial and antisocial behavior.” Unlike the idea that a crowded area would result in a lack of social behavior, I would definitely have been curious to go check out something or someone, had there been a problem, in fact more so in this deindividuated environment. Finally, I also agree with Yee and Bailenson’s discussion of how SIDE is manipulated and used within such environments. Second life and other such games definitely do create a certain degree of anonymity for the actual users. However, despite this deindividuation, there is normative and social behavior found within the virtual community itself. It’s really interesting how these virtual environments and avatars, yet an attempt at a “second life” (pun intended), do not seem to follow directly along the lines of some of the key theories we’ve been discussing in class.