[psych, anthro, race] Race in MMOs?

[siderea]

OK, guys, I know a bunch of you have linked to facinating articles about racial performance online (cvirtue, I seem to recall you linked to a couple about Second Life?) none of which I remember where I found them nor can I find them again. Anybody have any helpful pointers?

Comments

[cvirtue]

Would be happy to dig them up for you, but I'm not sure of your term "racial performance." But things I've posted about Second Life can be found via my tags, which in this case would be http://cvirtue.livejournal.com/tag/sl

[siderea]

Yay! found this one, "The Skin You're In", which is one that I was thinking of. It links to The Skin Game.

Any others you remember?

Oh, also found White Like Me and Transcending Race in Cyberspace? Yeah, Right.

[kayshapero]

That's... really sad. Would these folks go to a halloween party in their business clothes? I suppose bigots can be expected to have no imagination, but all the same it's pitiful. (And I loved Erika's revenge.)

[cvirtue]

Just as a side note on the SL issues in some of the articles: The system-available skin choices for avatars go from white to black, with brown, red, green, blue, etc. in between, and they *all* look terrible. To look moderately decent, one needs to buy a professionally done skin, and it's true that there are more white ones than black ones, but there definitely are easily-findable nice looking skins of color these days. Choices of avatar when you sign up are quite varied, including varieties of skin color.

I've been hit on in SL, very rudely, while wearing white skin and completely covered neck-to-toe-to-wrists. Idiocy knows no boundaries.

What I would *really* love to see is a double-blind study of skin color in SL. One where the player does not know what skin color (or sex) they are wearing at all, and have them record their experience of harassment.

[siderea]

Now, THAT is a fabulous idea. Ooooooh!

[kayshapero]

I've not had nearly enough connect speed to deal with Second Life thus far so have no personal experience with it. Not sure I want to bother if it's just one more branch of Mundania: The Bar Scene (big-cat yawn). I'm an RPGer and while in the real world I have to play a human all the time, what I would want to do is try something NON-human and probably not even humanoid. Probably something self-designed; do skin designs require anything other than an artist and Photoshop or equivalent?

And yeah, the double blind study sounds cool. Sheesh - if we can't manage dealing with difference in appearances now in fellow members of a single SUB-species, what the heck will we do come the day we meet up with (or create) something REALLY strange?

[cvirtue]

There are many, many role play areas in Second Life; I rather expect you could find anything you want there.

I "have land" in a Victorian Steampunk area, although sometimes I wander around there as a large daffodil, when my devices go on the blink. In the evenings, I switch to my formal black plantpot. ;)

[kayshapero]

Now that sounds entertaining. I really must try it sometime - again when I'm in a position to spend much time on a computer with a broadband hookup.

[tungol]

I wonder how long it would take for participants in such a study to figure out from other people's reactions what the sex and skin colour of their characters were.

[jducoeur]

I'd be surprised if they didn't twig to sex pretty fast. But I suspect the effects from skin color would be subtler and more interesting...

[cvirtue]

Not off the top of my head.

I have yet to recieve anything other than positive comments on my half-black, half-white avatar skin, but the region in SL in which I usually hang, is full of (near as I can tell) well-educated tolerant people.

Here's the half-and-half, if you are curious:

[cvirtue]

Oh, try this site and searches there -- they deal with many different MMORPGs

http://www.massively.com