
Just had a fascinating (if disheartening) conversation with someone I’ll call “Asami”, a long time Second Life user and Asian fashion enthusiast from Japan. While there is a substantial userbase of SL users based in Asia (roughly 5-10%, based on known stats), the overwhelming majority live in the United States and the European Union. That’s inadvertently led to a lot of misrepresentation of Asian identity and culture in Second Life avatars, and on the worse end of the problematic spectrum, Asian fetishization.
“Because a lot of people don't study the asian features correctly,” as Asami puts it, “they just make the eyes slanted and call it a day…. I've seen [SL users] with Western noses who are aware that their noses don't look Asian, but they don't like Asian noses, only Asian eyes, so they purposely make their shapes that way. When you're determined to represent a community properly, you'll put in the work necessary to do it. When you don't care and it's all the same to you, then you'll half ass it.”
By way of reference, she points to the shape above, in the Marketplace.
“The head used is ideal for Asian avis, the shape is pretty, but the skin itself isn't Asian and the result looks very Western.”

“This one [above] has the right jawline and the skin looks Asian but the nose and lips don't reflect an Asian avi -- maybe half-Asian.”
“These look like they were made by Asian fetishists,” I note.
“Agreed. People who pick and choose which aspects of Asian features they like.”
She shows me another:
Did Fragile Male Egos of Real Life Men Cause Second Life's Giant Crisis?
The trend toward incredibly tall avatars continues hurting the SL economy (bigger avatars need more virtual land, more virtual land costs more money per month), but why are avatars so huge in the first place? (For instance, pictured at right: Male Second Life avatar in the typical 7-8 foot range, next to a female avatar who is actually 5'7", i.e., on the taller side for women IRL.). But what keeps driving up avatar height? Reader "Pulsar" points out it could be a common culprit -- the fragile male ego:
This sounds right. I vividly remember creating my first avatar, setting the height to 6 feet tall, teleporting to an event... and feeling like Kevin Hart at an NBA party. Studies consistently confirm people form an empathetic relationship with the avatar that they control, so it's easy to see how real life height standards (which tend to affect men more than women) would carry over into the virtual world, nudging many or most male users into a tallness competition. And many or most female users would then feel nudged to follow suit, so the height disparity wasn't so vast. And as average avatar height increases, monthly land costs grow, until they're unsustainable for many, and the land ownership attrition increases too.
Or to put it another way: Linden Lab the company keeps losing revenue due to toxic masculinity.
Posted on Monday, July 30, 2018 at 01:50 PM in Avatars and Identity, Comment of the Week | Permalink | Comments (14)
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