Originally published on April 23 and 24th of 2003 here.
So what is my best face, and do I really want to put it forward?
That's probably the first question you'll ask yourself, when you fire up Second Life, and it looks like the developers already sense that. There's a sign next to the third signpost in Prelude, the orientation area for the game. This is the place where you learn how create and alter the look of your online persona.
But first, the sign reminds you not to spend so much time playing with your features, since you can always change them at any time.
In other words, Mr. Vanity, don't get all bogged down poking and prodding yourself in the mirror. Look around and explore, already.
So walking away from the mirror is a lot harder than you'd imagine. (But look at my face! What if I can't get it exactly right?) Probably because the options for what you can look like in Second Life are way more than you'd ever imagine. Your choices are broken down into numerous categories and subcategories (head, torso, hair, eyes, and so on-and-on). You adjust them via a slider control, moving each between two extremes: large nose versus small nose, for example, narrow eyes versus saucer-sized anime eyes. (Not to mention my favorite, the flat butt/big butt slider.) The upshot is an endless variety, and very likely, an endless amount of time tinkering away, to get the look just right...
Believe it or not, the original idea was to try and get as close as I could to what I actually look like in the real world. But I don't really look like George Michael from his A-Ha period, so apparently I bunged up quite a few times, along the way. Part of the challenge, if you're trying to match your actual appearance, is forcing yourself to stay honest: I'd rather not give myself any love handles (yes, there's a slider for that!) - but then, I'd better be straight with myself, and include them. (Then again, maybe it just means I should get to the gym more often.) If you go in that direction, trying to make your avatar mirror what you see every day in the mirror, the appearance selection mode sort of becomes a self-image quiz.
So I'll have to toy around with it a bit more, and get more familiar with the interface - and swallow a bit of pride - before it'll look like the real me. (In Second Life, fortunately, impromptu plastic surgery is always reversible.)
Dig my threads - or not. I was trying to dress myself in an all-white three-piece suit, and this was the best I could do. (Sort of meant it as a tribute to the trademark clothes of Tom Wolfe, the New Journalism master interpreter of American subculture.) What I ended up with, based on the default selections, is more like something from Miami Vice. Hopefully some ambitious Second Life user with good enough fashion designer chops has built a way more Wolfe-like wardrobe. (And if you're selling, e-mail me, because I'm buying!)
In any case, all this brings up another question: what do I really mean, when I say I'm trying to get my look right?
Not that easy a question to answer, when you think about it.
So if you could change your appearance, and your options were next to infinite, what would you want to look like?
With the old school, fantasy-sf MMOG, your choices are usually limited to the expectations of the universe you're in: you pretty much have to look like an extra from Fellowship of the Ring or Logan's Run. And rule of thumb, in my experience: most people who play these games usually go in one of three directions, when they select an appearance:
1. An idealized version of how they look in real life - as close as they can get to it, within the constraints of the game.
2. An idealized version of how they want to look, in real-life - or enjoy looking like, online - that's very different from their real life appearance.
3. A non-ideal version that's strange/humorous/offensive/extreme, which has nothing to do with what they look like in real life - but does say something about their real personality.
But because there's such an insanely wide range of options to choose from in Second Life, maybe we're finally getting to a place that Sherry Turkle mentioned in "Life on the Screen", her influential book on computer-mediated interaction from 1995. Once inside an online world, Turkle argued, computer users find themselves "swept up by experiences that enable them to... challenge their ideas about a unitary self."
What she's talking about is how online role-playing - either in a gamer sense, or in an anonymous chat room or message board - would give us new ways to play with different aspects of our identity.
But looking back at that now, this strikes me as way too optimistic - certainly when she wrote it, in the mid-90's, when online games were still pretty rudimentary, pokey affairs with bad graphics or none at all. But it's still something of an overreach. If you play a MMOG where you're a heroic, fireball-casting wizard, does that really challenge your ideas about a unitary self? Are you really going to learn anything about who you are? (Except that you like swords-n-sorcery games?)
Then again, maybe that has more to do with the limitations of most massively multiplayer games, up until now. If you're pretty much just stuck with combat, acquiring stuff, and grouping with other players (so you can combat more effectively, and acquire more stuff), then I'm guessing - all props to Prof. Turkle -your ideas about a unitary self won't budge an inch.
But what happens when your options go way beyond looking like a pumped-up Paladin, or a lycra-clad starship commander? What will your choices say, about who you are as a person?
Stuff I'll be trying to find out, when I flip open my reporter's notebook, in Second Life.
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