A blog post was posted on Pixels and Policy last week about female avatars in Second Life.
Out of 40 female avatars interviewed, 70% regarded their bust size as a primary concern when creating a Second Life avatar. Real-world females proved more likely to rebel against the Second Life ideal described by one female avatar as “a balloon chest and a low-cut top.” There were several real-world females who embraced a large-chested avatar, though their reasons varied.
“At first I played with an avatar that I thought represented me physically,” a Burning Life visitor told me, “But not many people talked to me. Now [with a large-chested avatar] people go out of their way to IM me and send me friend requests.” The need to adjust physical features to promote conversation ran deep among real-world women.
Drin Brewster, a provocatively-dressed female avatar, said she dressed suggestively in Second Life because there were no restrictive social norms. The desire to be approached and talked to by another avatar is realized by creating a sexually idealized character.
This is a huge step backwards for female avatars, since passive attractiveness is replacing active friend-seeking (approaching an avatar as opposed to being approached) in the virtual social network.
Even in a virtual space, Second Life citizens generally are creating avatars that look the way they want to in real life. They’re skinnier, have larger chests, and are generally the embodiment of the stereotypical female ideals. Which leads me to wonder – why is it that we fight the typical female appearance ideals, yet when given a choice to create our avatars as overweight or as similar to ourselves as possible, we don’t?
I’m a culprit too. I’m an overweight female in real life, yet my avatar in Second Life is thin and adorable.
Second Life feels like a perfect candidate to discuss the power of virtual worlds. SL isn’t a game where the people who spend time there just pop in for short intervals, complete objectives until the game is beat before putting it on the shelf to retire. Second Life is a living, breathing digital world. Most of all cultural and social norms that exist in the real world are replicated. Expectations about how people should look are translated word-for-word into SL. If you don’t look good like the other avatars, chances are you will get ignored. I knew a guy who intentionally made a very large disproportionate avatar and was laughed at, ridiculed and ignored everywhere he went. He was accused of “griefing” just because he was unattractive. See, even high school bullying takes place in SL.
Virtual worlds aren’t actually Utopian. When will these stereotypes cease to exist in virtual worlds? When they disappear in the real life that the virtual spaces are trying to replicate.
