A new survey about the kind of avatar you most resemble in Second Life:
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Classic New World Notes stories:
Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father A Second Life (2011)
What Rebecca Learned By Being A Second Life Man (2010)
All About My Avatar: The story behind amazing strange avatars (2007)
Fighting the Front: When fascists open an HQ in Second Life, chaos and exploding pigs ensue (2007)
Copying a Controversy: Copyright concerns come to the Metaverse via... the CopyBot! (2006)
The Penguin & the Zookeeper: Just another unlikely friendship formed in The Metaverse (2006)
Guarding Darfur: Virtual super heroes rally to protect a real world activist site (2006)
The Skin You're In: How virtual world avatar options expose real world racism (2006)
Making Love: When virtual sex gets real (2005)
Watching the Detectives: How to honeytrap a cheater in the Metaverse (2005)
Man on Man and Woman on Woman: Just another gender-bending avatar love story, with a twist (2005)
War of the Jessie Wall: Battle over virtual borders -- and real war in Iraq (2003)
Home for the Homeless: Creating a virtual mansion despite the most challenging circumstances (2003)
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.
Posted by: Ann Otoole | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 04:11 AM
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.
Posted by: Fee Cuddihy | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 04:44 AM
Then there are the children with tails and ears....
Posted by: Adz Childs | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:32 AM
There should have been a "shapeshifter" choice. I know several people who can't go more than a day in the same avatar.
Posted by: Ghosty Kips | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:55 AM
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.
Posted by: Wol Euler | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 06:22 AM
On the other hand, answering mine was pretty simple and straightforward.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 07:26 AM
Given I'm 75% of the avatars in the image you borrowed... ;-)
Posted by: Marianne McCann | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 07:33 AM
All of the above. Why limit myself to just one type?
Posted by: Ari Blackthorne™ | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 07:38 AM
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.
Posted by: Onyx Plutonian | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 09:07 AM
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!
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 09:26 AM
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.
Posted by: TheShadow99 | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 10:44 AM
18% are child avies? I see a few, but not many.
Posted by: Bixyl Shuftan | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 02:03 PM
All of the above, and as Ghostly Kips says, often during the same conversation. ;)
Posted by: Storm Thunders | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 03:19 PM
@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.
Posted by: Marianne McCann | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 03:55 PM
Human avatar that doesn't look at all like me in real life. Not inspired by my RL self at all.
Posted by: Montserrat Biedermann | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:03 PM
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)
Posted by: Alyx Sands | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:06 PM
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!
Posted by: Fogwoman Gray | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:18 PM
ps: one of my favorites is an overturned bucket avatar. Everyone ignores you as you sit there.
Posted by: Fogwoman Gray | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:20 PM
My avi is self inspired human by what I would have looked like 35 years ago had I had the freedom to.
Posted by: Rev LeShelle | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 05:39 PM
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..
Posted by: Softpaw Sommer | Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 11:31 PM
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.
Posted by: Cyzicus Xue | Friday, May 14, 2010 at 08:18 AM
I am a child avie, but i'm also a Neko, so i chose child. :)
Posted by: Sage Kostenbaum | Friday, May 14, 2010 at 08:40 PM
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?
Posted by: Faerie | Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 04:19 AM
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
Posted by: Senban Babii | Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 05:08 AM
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.
Posted by: Tymmerie Thorne | Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 06:45 AM
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.
Posted by: Uccello | Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 09:23 AM
Mistophur Au, you ain't got "fake hillbilly (and lovin' man" up there as a catygory.
I reckons that are discrimernation, sir.
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 02:36 PM
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.
Posted by: yti Islay | Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 11:56 PM
I'm specifying in comments, since I chose "other". I'm a Faerie in second life, although I was briefly today an egg.
Posted by: Deoridhe Quandry | Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 01:39 AM