Survey: What's Your Second Life Avatar Type?

A new survey about the kind of avatar you most resemble in Second Life:

Online Surveys & Market Research

Thanks to Damien Fate, for suggesting the idea, and to Marianne McCann, who created the great illustration of SL avatars on parade, that I borrowed above -- see the large version here, it's really wonderful. If you have questions or objections with the survey (and no doubt some do) please post them in Comments.

Update, 5/15: Bumped. If you haven't voted yet, please do, and tell your friends to do the same!

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

I know which way this is going to go lmao. 2 choices for real life looks.

But next you will have to do a survey on spending by genre. See who spends more and is worth more to the economy so LL can begin eliminating all the undesired elements not paying enough money money money for the board members VC dashboards.

Oh and it needed to be a multiple choice poll since a large number change depending upon what they are doing at any given time. Not everyone can pull off the demonic clown thing in a business meeting. I can but people expect me to do weird artistic crap.

Oh and another factor, that is rather unhappy and unpleasant, is that so many of the RL/club looks involve stolen content. Possibly because it was easier for the rippers to harvest at clubs. I remember once asking a long time friend where to get a skin. The answer? Steal it like everyone else. I'll pass. How disappointing that even seemingly upstanding residents with money iRL steal because everyone else does. So yea there are many possible factors for what people choose to wear.

Complicated one Hamlet. Opens up all sorts of interesting study possibilities.

[Fee Cuddihy]

I am not realy truely any of those I think. I am me, a Giraffe. I am not prim based like most furries and dragons etc. I am in a skin with human atributes. A work of art yes but not realistic, inspired only by myself and a love of animals... a true Anthropomorph I guess.

[Adz Childs]

Then there are the children with tails and ears....

[Ghosty Kips]

There should have been a "shapeshifter" choice. I know several people who can't go more than a day in the same avatar.

[Wol Euler]

I wasn't quite sure how to answer this. My avs are all realistically human, they are shorter and fatter than the SL norm and most are definitely not "beautiful," but none of them is based in any way on my RL body. One is occasionally a furry, another RPs sometimes as a Na'vi in Pandora.

[Adeon Writer]

On the other hand, answering mine was pretty simple and straightforward.

[Marianne McCann]

Given I'm 75% of the avatars in the image you borrowed... ;-)

[Ari Blackthorne™]

All of the above. Why limit myself to just one type?

[Onyx Plutonian]

I answered "furry" as my primary acct is a white tiger anthromorph. However, I also have two human alts one of which is a vampire, a shapechanger alt who is sometimes an elf sometimes a mechanical construct sometimes a dalmation anthro and sometimes human and a neko alt.

[Hamlet Au]

I debated making "A combination of two or more of these types" a choice, but finally decided that it's best to push for the most predominant type, even if that's just by a percent of %50.001. Also, this survey software only allows for 10 options!

[TheShadow99]

I'm Neko & 'Human Avatar inspired by RL Contemporary Fashions' both. But I picked Neko since it seems to get the short straw in this survey.

But yeah I'm really a mix, I'm a stylish neko, which tends to be the norm of neko older than about a year.

[Bixyl Shuftan]

18% are child avies? I see a few, but not many.

[Storm Thunders]

All of the above, and as Ghostly Kips says, often during the same conversation. ;)

[Marianne McCann]

@Bixyl Shuftan

While that seems high even from my perspective, it's important to note that most kid avvies do not "mix" with the general SL population, and stay to their own sims, stores, and parcels. If you're into the typical SL club scene, it's very likely you may never see one.

[Montserrat Biedermann]

Human avatar that doesn't look at all like me in real life. Not inspired by my RL self at all.

[Alyx Sands]

As has been said before-all of the above, plus more. And combinations of them. So I had to choose "other". I have even been a potted plant. (No, I'm NOT kidding)

[Fogwoman Gray]

As everyone commented above, one of the points of SL is that I can be all of the above and more. Aside from a blue skin and slightly pointed ears, my avi is a standard bilaterally symmetric humanoid. But I have a couple of hundred choices, depending on my mood. Which is one of the great joys of SL. I can put on a skin when I visit a new place that either compliments the environment or contrasts with it. And reflects my mood, the season, or random chance!

[Fogwoman Gray]

ps: one of my favorites is an overturned bucket avatar. Everyone ignores you as you sit there.

[Rev LeShelle]

My avi is self inspired human by what I would have looked like 35 years ago had I had the freedom to.

[Softpaw Sommer]

I put down Furry. But I don't look like your usual furry. Yeah I use a Luskwood cat. But I also have fairy wings and go about in gowns instead of the usual outfits you see furs in and I use resized none furry hair..

[Cyzicus Xue]

I do a number of avatars too, but I spend the most time as a wynx tiny bobcat. I hope when its all finished it will show the number of votes as well.

[Sage Kostenbaum]

I am a child avie, but i'm also a Neko, so i chose child. :)

[Faerie]

The problem with these polls is that the answers are so black and white, so "this and nothing else" and then someone runs off and comes up with a bunch of statistics that give a very distorted view.

So, primarily I am (still) a faerie in SL BUT I have a huge folder of avatars that I like to be apart from a faerie; mermaid, faun, centaur, dragon (I have several), neko, robot, robot neko, devil, angel, comic book characters, cat, bear, werewolf and so on.

I like variety and you want me to pick just one?

[Senban Babii]

I voted neko, naturally 8D

One observation. The option "Human avatar primarily inspired by RL self". This is flawed for the simple reason that very very few people create an avatar designed to mirror their meatselves. What they create in that regard is how they *wish* they looked in meatspace.

However, being a cynical kitteh, we all know that this poll is designed to show that the majority want to have their SL represent and mirror their RL, in accordance with the Lab's desired directions. I know Hamlet Au was limited by the software and that can be difficult to overcome. But as statistics generated by polls like this are often used to guide policy, it's important to get the right statistics, ones that represent reality more accurately. I'd love to see a more comprehensive and representative poll done.

http://whenitchanged.blogspot.com/2010/04/initial-avatar-choices-heading-in-wrong.html

[Tymmerie Thorne]

Bixyl (and any others for whom this answer is appropriate) -- the survey only tells us that 18% of the people who answered this survey are child avs. It tells us almost nothing about the general population of SL since it is not a random sample of the SL population.

[Uccello]

Your survey asks us to pigeon hole ourselves too narrowly. Like most folks, I have an alt. Actually, I have a few alts. Without getting into numbers, one alt is primarily a pixy, but is also a tiny Pixy Bunny. Another is primarily a Loco Pocos Mouse, but is also a human twin to my usual avie. The latter is most often human and used to look more like my RL self than she does now, but with her I often change to other-than-human skins, strange hair, and even other avatars. And I have a male alt (long story; perfectly clean) that can be a bipedal zebra Furry. Almost all my avies have Furry forms, tiny versions, and special avies for low-lag situations or just for fun.

Yes, I have a pigeon avie, too.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Mistophur Au, you ain't got "fake hillbilly (and lovin' man" up there as a catygory.

I reckons that are discrimernation, sir.

[yti Islay]

What's interesting to me about this survey isn't its limitations of choice or possible non-representiveness (which are surely merely an unavoidable product of the nature of a non 'clinical trial' quick internet survey), but the passionate discourse which this survey has elicited.

Second Life avatars are clearly, for many, an important extension of their real life identity. An avatar isn't a hallowe'en dress up costume - it's an expression of oneself, for many, I believe.

Many people in real life feel uncomfortable in their own bodies for a variety of reasons: so when we ask: is ones avatar based on oneself - we need to first define a fundamental distinction: are we talking about ones real life physical self or ones real life internal self?

I believe ones Second Life avatar can reflect ones true nature, to overcome this feeling of being uncomfortable, for whatever reason, in ones own real life body, to allow one to 'be oneself'.

For the record, I ticked the child avatar category - because my avatar is based on an unspecified mid to late teens girl. But my avatar is also me, in some respects when I was that age, and in other respects the way I am now, in real life twice the age of my avatar.

I chose to be in the child community because it is the friendliest and most good-natured and most strongly bonded (large and diverse) community in Second Life, in my experience.

Also, there is the simple advantage that by being a child avatar I avoid (for the most part) tiresome sexual advances, for which I have no interest.

And if I have to find a gripe about the survey's overly narrow characterisation: I would point out that 'child' avatar covers a lot of very diverse subsets: I'm unsure if I would class together entirely avatars of a 5-year old, a 10 year old and a 16 year old. But that is by the by.

The real question for us to ask ourselves is why are we in Second Life and what do our avatars mean to us? If we feel strongly about our avatar being a reflection of our true identity - can that teach us something about our real lives?

Is Second Life merely a 'role-playing "game"' or is it something far more vital, important and personal than that?

Thank you for this survey - it has ignited much interesting debate and personal reflection on many issues, especially identity. A bad thing by no means.

[Deoridhe Quandry]

I'm specifying in comments, since I chose "other". I'm a Faerie in second life, although I was briefly today an egg.