Comments on: The Presentation of Self in Virtual Life

By: John

John — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:33:05 +0000

I argue that though the gender selection may be based on dorment desires, it often times is chosen as a direct result of opportunity. In my experience studying this game for a research topic, males often choose female avatars with the desire to be treated differently. Often time, it leads to slight advantages on the players part.

However, this option does come from the other direction as well. Females, in game, while gaining a slight advantage on occasion are often hassled, resulting in females making male avatars in order to be treated fairly.

It really is an interesting topic on its own.

By: Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:12:30 +0000

P.S. Rereading my post, I seem to have got a little confused; when I say “And while Tom Boellstorff might argue that sex remains undefined” the only reason I think that Tom Boellstorff argues that is sleep deprivation, given that I haven’t read the book and you explicitly say in your post “Boellstorff points out, the Second Life software doesn’t allow gender to be left undefined”.

I would therefore remove the “however” from the first sentence, because really I’m not going against anything anybody’s said, I’m just really adding my own opinion. The rest of the post stands!

By: Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:58:43 +0000

An interesting post. I would argue, however, that because these environments rely on a graphical, anthropomorphic interface, we have to take seriously the possibility that they may in fact reproduce or even intensify existing (or dormant) sexual dichotomies.

In an IRC or MUD environment where people are basing their interactions purely on _what you say_, sex-based assumptions can be suspended (although perhaps not indefinitely). The main focus is on the words, and the description of actions. With the advent of virtual environments, there is no need for description, as these words and actions are mediated by the manipulation of an avatar. And while Tom Boellstorff might argue that sex remains undefined, and people can manipulate assumptions about appearances, behaviours, etc, I would say that there is always a temptation towards creating avatars that reproduce stereotypes about what men and women should look like. Very few people will create avatars of fat women or malnourished men.

Compare this with the interface of IRC, or something like a MUD, where people were just text on the screen – that, I would say, had a far more radical potential to change how people presented themselves, how people interacted, how people SAW eachother.

(Disclosure: I have very limited experience of these kinds of “virtual life”, although I did used to use a chatroom as part of a particular learning community. I was doing some google searching to actually get a feel of what these things look like, and I found an interesting article on architecture in second life:
http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=47037_0_23_0_MIn In some ways what I am saying about sex, that article says about architecture: “When it comes down to it, from an architectural perspective, Second Life just sort of replicates suburbia.”)