Comments | kateamdahl: Secrecy, Identity, Truth and Lies

kateamdahl

Secrecy, Identity, Truth and Lies

Dec 01, 2006 16:05

A lot of Second Life avatars are different from their Real Life counterparts. A lot. Males have female avatars, females (less often) have male avatars, married people represent themselves as single and available, and almost everyone is svelte and trim, with large breasts for the women and bulky muscles for the men ( Read more... )

avatar, disclosure, gender, second life, identity, lies, truth, avi, privacy

Comments 9

Interesting flwrbabe December 2 2006, 08:40:28 UTC

I like to think that I have nothing to hide. My avatar is probably maybe a size 8, when I'm like a size 12, but since there's nothing to measure by in SL, I'm kinda just winging it. Otherwise, I studied my face and tried to match the facial structure as closely as possible. I don't hide who I am in real life and have attended several SL-centric functions in the last few months, posting pictures after each of them.

I guess I can understand wanting to be something you can't be in real life, or express yourself creatively. It's their right to do so. The hiding of marital status seems totally wrong to me, though. They should be ashamed.

~moo Money

anonymous December 4 2006, 20:10:00 UTC

I use my second life as a second life. it's my chance to do and be whatever I want. My avatar is me,idealized. I just try to treat other people with respect. I do respect the choice to live your SL any way you want to.

brace_coral January 15 2007, 20:55:06 UTC

"I've sometimes seen people confuse "honesty" with "disclosure," and this is a mistake.Amen to that. If you have the sense to be safe online, being in VR is a "lie" from the getgo ( ... )

Lying about Gender barraclough January 17 2008, 01:06:21 UTC

Wow. I must have a LOT to learn about Second Life! Somehow ppl having sexier avs than their actual RL bodies doesn't bug me in the slightest. But lying to me straight up about one's gender - especially when that person has become my "MISTRESS" and I am "DEVOTED" to "HER" .... when I have been devoted to her for quite some time doing many tasks for her and giving her gifts etc... ... and then today, to find out that "SHE" is actually MALE... well, this hurts me and pisses me off. It really does. And I don't know what to do.

I still don't know if all of the ppl in second life are just messin with me or what. They probably are. I probably asked for it by believing anyone in SL at all. From all the comments I read above, that looks like the case. It is, after all, a game and not a true second life.

... anonymous May 30 2008, 14:08:39 UTC

about that...well look, the name says it all. It's Second Life. And we can be whatever we wanna be. I'm a mermaid in SL. So what? I don't think that someone would be so dumb and believe that I'm a mermaid in RL if I said that to him/her. It's a new, better life where we can be WHATEVER WE WANNA BE! I agree with you about the gender stuff, but I think that everything else is just our choice.

Re: ... kateamdahl May 30 2008, 17:08:28 UTC

I definitely agree with you...but not everyone does! As far as I can tell, people who object to having an avatar of a different gender or age or race or appearance make a distinction between things that are obviously not true about a person (like having the tail of a fish) and things that might or might not be true about a person (like being 20-something years old). And how you and I may feel about the matter won't persuade someone who feels differently! However much we may want people to share our point of view, a lot of people won't, so we'll have to deal with those people one way or another, whether it means avoiding them, confronting them, or just handling problems as they come up ( ... )