Ned Easterwood

Comments made elsewhere by Persephone and Cindy led me to create this thread, which I hope will provoke thoughtful discussion and greater understanding.

We all know that we express ourselves through our avatars – the virtual images of ourselves in SL. Each of us has a different vision; thus our avatars are as different as ourselves. Indeed, those of us with multiple avatars may well be expressing different facets of ourselves with each avatar.

As most of you know, I have two accounts. The original account, Beathag McMahon, was inspired by a character I play in a pen and paper RPG. That character, Siobhan Beathag MacLeod, a Scot from the Isle of Skye, is a short, feisty, athletic woman. Her personality is much that of my middle daughter, who is the child who is most like her dad in temperament. I thought it would be a great challenge to try to replicate that personality in SL – which I knew nothing about when I signed up. I also took advantage of SL to explore sides of myself that I hadn't/couldn't in RL.

Bea's appearance was based on my idea of Siobhan's – short, athletic, fair-skinned, red-haired – and, while attractive, not a great beauty. Bea originally dressed like the typical SL clubber but then discovered some different clothing stores, and then developed a style that our own Brig once referred to as “sexy preppy”.

I don't think Bea represents my “feminine side” - I really dislike that term- rather, she was my attempt to rise above some gender-related stereotypes – something I flatter myself that I did well, in-world. (But not as well on the forums!) I am a good listener, and know (most of the time!) when to offer advice (and how to phrase it) and when just to make sincere sympathetic expressions. One woman I know told me, when I told her that some guy had accused me of being a man, that there was no way I was a man IRL. I was very flattered.

Ned – hmmm.
Ned is very close to his typist in personality. Not really that different from Bea, but not as feisty. When I started purchasing clothes, I moved into a sort of “business casual” look – khakis or dark slacks or sometimes jeans, golf shirt or button front sport shirt. My first purchases were almost all from Nyte'n'Day, Blaze, and Shiny Things – merchants I knew and had patronized as Bea, who made nice quality stuff.

One of the things I bought from Shiny Things was a fat-pack of her Boho Sandals. I love my sandals in RL, and would wear them lots more than I do if the weather allowed it. (The pic I posted of me at my daughter's graduation shows me in khakis, knit sport shirt, and my sandals.) I started wearing sandals in-world almost all the time. Then I got pipes – I smoke a pipe IRL – and with sandals and a pipe, started looking a little more bohemian/academic.

That's the look I have tried to cultivate. The new skin I got from Nomine, with a beard, just seems to enhance that. It is not uncommon to see me on the grid in dark pants or jeans (or sometimes khakis), sport shirt, unbuttoned sport jacket, sandals, and a pipe stuck in my face. The kind of guy – grad student or young faculty member – you saw when I went to college long ago. The guy who would sit in a bar or coffee house with Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady, discussing books or politics or music. I did that a lot in college – although usually in dorm common areas, 'cause it was cheaper – and wasn't dressed quite as well. Maybe that look represents a longing for that youthful past, when everything seemed much simpler.

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Ned

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent. -- Epictetus

Do unto others as they would have done unto them.

God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. - Reinhold Niebuhr

Cindy Claveau

Interesting topic, Ned. I think my own avatar started out to be what I was *not* in RL - dark-haired (I'm blonde), petite (I'm tall and lanky), serious and sensual.

But over time she's changed. Granted, she took a hiatus for a few months last year and I don't log in as much these days because of other commitments, but today I think SL-Cindy is more fun-loving, protective, and loyal than she was before. She's also less trusting of the Men Behind the Curtain (aren't we all?).

Not that she wasn't ever loyal and fun-loving. But I've noticed a change in how I come across typing. The subtle alterations in skin and hair on the avatar are not important. So many of my old friends have left SL. After Montie died, it was like a huge bucket of cold water in my face that I haven't been telling my friends how much they mean to me. Not as much as I should. I've tried to change that.

Lourdes

Lourdes is the RL me on the inside, if I had crazy amounts of money and endless closet space.
Oh yeah and if I had sliders to make the body I'd like but with more precision then the SL sliders.

Seriously RL I'm low maintenance jean and sneakers type of gal. No makeup and all that.

I enjoy dressing Lourdes up in evening gowns and stuff I have never worn in RL. Make up that I couldn't stand to be on my face RL. And she wears heels that I would have killed my self wearing 100 times over.

I don't think she has one style. The style is whatever I feel like at the moment.

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Khamon

My avatar was a hooman boy for two weeks then morphed into a chlorophyll-based life form with the intention of greening The Grid All Hail The Central Grid ahem. We only had half-a-dozen or so Linden plants at the time so the av grew out of a need to express my mission.

Being old and settled, I've not changed his appearance since early 2004 beyond rotating through a few clothing textures. He really really likes Ospery's stillsuit though so wears it most of the time. People are constantly laughing at the fact that I wear no skin or attachments except the odd hat, torch and coffee cup. The sliders work for me though; I'm more inclined to just use the interface than kill your frame rate making myself match a vision seen in a dream I once had.

The alts wear other avatars of course. Fate Garden is a tiny raccoon him so cute. Supreme Dalek generally wears Joshua's older model floating round robotoid but sometimes dons Lum's original Dalek costume to roll around. I refuse to believe that Daleks can float; that's just a modern camera trick is all. My RL alt is still wearing the library newbie guy avatar. He's more a name holder than anything as I haven't yet used him as a testing dummy or inventory alt.

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Tya

Tya's personality is me in rl. I can't change it or RP. I suck at RP. The clothes I choose for her on most days, is what I like in RL. As for her look. Well i am blond,color it brown and 5'2 in rl. Tya is blond/brown/black and 6'5 lol. I find it easier to express myself through building/creating rather then avatar appearance.

Tya

Natalie P.

I don't really view Nat as having a personality of her own. She is truly my avatar in that she is the thing I speak through - Natalie Paderborn's voice is that of the human at the keyboard. I'm probably a bit more outgoing and openly snarky online than I am in person, but that's just computer anonymity making it easier. I have an alt, but I've never found any use for her. There's really nothing I want to do in SL that I can't do as Nat, so poor Millie is lost and superfluous.

I flatter myself that I could have Nat's body if I cared anything for exercise; as it is, she's a taller, skinnier version of myself, I guess, though her face is nothing like mine. I was given her shape when I was a noob, and it wasn't terribly attractive, so I set about playing with the sliders to make it pretty. And in two years, she hasn't changed much from that first bout of hardcore tweaking, save for some very subtle slider shifting.

I'm very fond of her, mainly because I think she's beautiful. I've tried hard to keep her from being one of the interchangable crowd of pretty people, and I like to think I've succeeded.

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Quantum Destiny

I don't express myself through my avatar, period. I would be quite happy with a noob avatar, and have only made some effort to fit in with those who consider avatar appearance as being important. Not intentional, but my avatar doesn't look a great deal different to how I do RL - fairly plain and 'normal'!

The only way I 'express myself' in SL is via stuff I create, and via the words I type.

Carter-Madhu

Madhu is an expression of my mature, responsible, magnanimous side. She's modest, friendly; a person people feel they can trust and open themselves to, everyone's big sister.

Carter is me - the most raw and visceral part of me who cries out for expression against the circumstances of my RL. She's passionate, vulnerable, sensitive, strong at moments, romantic, thoughtful, good. She wears her heart on her sleeve, for better or worse.

And they are both me. They both tend to melancholy and moodiness, can be playful, can be talky. They both say stupid things they regret. They both love very fully and loyally.

As much as I love my little blue Madhu, were it not for the cafe I think I might have retired her for good, or at least given her a long hiatus. Being Madhu was fun but I need Carter. Having given her life in SL, I need to be her there, until I can figure out how to give her life in RL too.

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Joshua Nightshade

My avatar is a costume in a video game.

Cindy Claveau

I should add: "I need to remind people of how important they are to me. Especially the ones who send me free kick-ass boots!"

Ingrid N

My answer to this would have been different, had you asked this a year ago, but I'm me in SL. Ingrid looks a bit like me (Just a tiny bit, though. part of the reason I dyed my hair black again is because I liked how it looked on Ingrid - I had red hair for a few years before that.) and partially what I find attractive in women - smallness of stature, long dark hair, green eyes, pale skin. Oh, and Antlers. Girls gotta have antlers.

I don't act differently between alts, or make an effort to hide that Ingrid is my primary avatar, I just like changing my look occasionally. My alt Zara, who is currently my SLU avatar, switches between looking more male or more female all the time and best expresses how I feel about my own internal gender.

I have grown accustomed to their respective looks, however. Ingrid not looking like, well, Ingrid in SL makes me uncomfortable, for some reason.

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Rhonda Huntress

I created the avatar in the sense that I got to pick the first name I wanted. The last name I had to pick from a list. Thus began a long slide with less and less control.

Once in world I tried to mold her in the shape I wanted, but she would have none of that. We are still fight over the final shape and I am loosing the battle. She did like the eyes I chose for her and the hair I first bought for her, but only when the mood fits her and seldom in the color had I picked. I even bought her a good AO from animations by a lesser known maker and she put that freebie "sl stiletto" walk in it. She's a slut and tries to pass herself off as being polite and courteous but she's a queen bitch underneath.

My avatar is not so much an expression of me as she is an expression of her own self.

Confused

My 'avatar' is truely my heart and my soul. By that I dont mean her looks, I mean the essence of who she is. SL has been a place where I have been able to find myself. In a world where I dont normlly 'fit, SL has been a wonderful experience to see that dispite it all I can interact with people in a meaningful way..

I suck at socialising in RL, I am socially inept.


My avatar in appearance certainly means a lot, it is an experssion of who I am. Im not really sure WHAT i express with my choices other than they make me smile and make me feel good.

Darkley

I don't consider my avatars as seperate to me, they are me although with a better wardrobe and more attractive. I don't rp a character, I have done in the past but not 24/7

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Kyllie Wylie

Interesting subject, for me I started out trying to make an avatar that was a "perfect" me. one that looked like me when I was 20 and fit and a few umm ..enhancements but overall a copy of me.

Then one day a friend introduced me to her neighbor, she had all white skin and I asked her if she was a Goth... she laughed and said " no i'm a Neko" and then I noticed she had cat ears and a tail... I said "what's a neko?"...

Guess you could say the rest is history ....

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Confused

/me is still trying to work out how the neko's are taking over the world...


i think it is mind control...

Aodhan McDunnough

The farthest I'd go avatar-expression wise is I'd like to look like my avatar. Well it's not my ideal look (which I don't have) but it's one look I'd like.

But personality? Oh, 100% me except for a small amount of language filtering. My avatar in-world is a manifestation of my creative side (as in I want to make things).

Jeni Roussel

Thanks Ned, for posting this topic. I remember when I first joined SL a year ago, I was given 4 avs to pick from to get started. I chose the goth av as I have a goth side to me, though one I don't usually show in RL, and thought what fun to be able to express that in this exciting new (for me) virtual world. For the first few months I tried different looks for my av, glamourous, a better goth, a ginger and enjoyed living out those fantasies (I always wanted to be a red head). But for the past 6 months I've had basically the same avi. She looks much more like me in RL (though much prettier) and I usually dress myself in SL more like in I do in RL too (I live in jeans in both places). So for whatever reason, SL and RL have come much closer together. This wasn't on purpose, just more the way things worked out.

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Dnate Mars

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Lexxi Gynoid

My RL avatar is a cat. My SL avatar has some cat like characteristics.

Personality-wise . . .there are parties (PMG Cafe comes to mind) where I'll stand around and blurt out something or other every once in a while. I talk less in real life and rarely am comfortable enough to be in a crowd. They might step on my tail. (actually, at times and literally - hurts to talk, to get words spit out, I might even have conversation running around in my mind that I could be saying, but it is hard to talk sometimes (probably not conveying this right; not afraid of people's reactions, physicially hurts to talk to get words out).

Charlemagne Allen

Charlemagne is above all, a very elegant, cultured personage, who doesn't leave the house unless she's wearing something that's beautiful. She doesn't wear much that screams sex all over the place; she doesn't need it, and prefers to whisper that kind of stuff. She will shake her head when I get out an anvil dropper or snowball gatling gun, but we get on well most of the time.

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LittleMe Jewell

Lil is me and more. She has the figure I had at age 30 cuz I miss it, she has the more vibrant auburn hair coloring than I've always wanted and she gets to wear all of the pretty dresses and gowns that I don't wear in RL because I have no place or reason to wear them there. She loves to shop whereas I cannot stand RL shopping. She does a lot of dancing as I love that in RL but I don't get to do it much anymore. Personality wise, she is all me. I suck at RP or any sort of pretending of who I am - though I am more outgoing in SL whereas I am quite shy and introverted in RL.

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Beebo Brink

That need for expression really resonates with me.

Beebo is a part of me that has been starved in RL, most especially in the way she dresses but also in the way she interacts with women. Her opinions, perspectives, values are all mine, but the package she presents them in exists only in grid (and by extension, this forum).

I think that for those of us who have had our RL compromised by societal convention or even misfortune, the form and styling of our avatars is especially meaningful.

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