mini meta fest: userpics
Originally I wasn't going to participate in 
skuf's Mini Meta Fest, but she posted that after assigning prompts, there was one lonely prompt left - so I took it: Userpics in posting/commenting.
In addition to my fandom presence on LJ and DW, I have a nonfandom flist, a Facebook identity (FB), and I participate in a web-based running forum (RWOL). The first two have multiple userpics available for each posting, the latter two have a single (but changeable at will) userpic per identity. Most of my FB friends use their real names as their usernames, but not all do; few people do on RWOL or on LJ/DW, although several do on my RL flist.
I did a little count of each of these (most recent friendsfeed or equivalent) to classify what kind of pictures people are using to represent themselves. Here are some examples from my own icons to illustrate the (somewhat arbitrary) categories I picked:
Self: see post icon :-)
Representation of self:
Other, same sex:
Other, opposite sex:
Other representation:
Pet/child:
Object/scenery:
Other animal (stretching it a bit):
Multiple people:
Text only/primarily:
The vast majority of userpics on FB and RWOL are "Self". Even people who don't use real names on RWOL use their real faces. On fandom LJ/DW, none of the posts I saw had a self icon, although nearly 10% (10/102) used a representation of self. On nonfandom LJ/DW, 25% (5/20) used self icons and 10% used representations of self.
By contrast, almost one-third of fandom journal posts (31) used icons of people (generally fannish BSOs) of opposite sex of the one the user publicly identifies as. What surprised me was that 8 posts used icons of people of the same sex. I'm used to seeing guys in icons, and 90%+ of my flist is female, so I never draw conclusions that male icon=male person. But I am oddly discomfited when nonfannish journals or people on nonfannish sites use icons showing people of opposite sex from the one they identify as. This doesn't happen frequently, but it does happen (although not in this particular count).
Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are
comments.
skuf's Mini Meta Fest, but she posted that after assigning prompts, there was one lonely prompt left - so I took it: Userpics in posting/commenting.
In addition to my fandom presence on LJ and DW, I have a nonfandom flist, a Facebook identity (FB), and I participate in a web-based running forum (RWOL). The first two have multiple userpics available for each posting, the latter two have a single (but changeable at will) userpic per identity. Most of my FB friends use their real names as their usernames, but not all do; few people do on RWOL or on LJ/DW, although several do on my RL flist.
I did a little count of each of these (most recent friendsfeed or equivalent) to classify what kind of pictures people are using to represent themselves. Here are some examples from my own icons to illustrate the (somewhat arbitrary) categories I picked:
Self: see post icon :-)
Representation of self:
Other, same sex:
Other, opposite sex:
Other representation:
Pet/child:
Object/scenery:
Other animal (stretching it a bit):
Multiple people:
Text only/primarily:
The vast majority of userpics on FB and RWOL are "Self". Even people who don't use real names on RWOL use their real faces. On fandom LJ/DW, none of the posts I saw had a self icon, although nearly 10% (10/102) used a representation of self. On nonfandom LJ/DW, 25% (5/20) used self icons and 10% used representations of self.
By contrast, almost one-third of fandom journal posts (31) used icons of people (generally fannish BSOs) of opposite sex of the one the user publicly identifies as. What surprised me was that 8 posts used icons of people of the same sex. I'm used to seeing guys in icons, and 90%+ of my flist is female, so I never draw conclusions that male icon=male person. But I am oddly discomfited when nonfannish journals or people on nonfannish sites use icons showing people of opposite sex from the one they identify as. This doesn't happen frequently, but it does happen (although not in this particular count).
Also posted on Dreamwidth where there are
comments.