Self-Medialization on Second Life: Staging a Physically Unattractive Avatar

It seems that the majority of people that are in Second Life designs their avatars to appear extremely handsome or “hot,” often well-toned and extremely curvy to the point where the avatars look like video-game characters rather than realistic representations of the participants. Of course, one of the appealing aspects of staging in a virtual world is the opportunity to role play as a completely different existence; to “emerge from the shadow of their anonymity for the moment.. and assume the status of icons in [this] universe of self-created “Superstars.” (Frohne, 253).” I find it interesting that so many avatars' in Second Life are altered to look visually and physically attractive; what Frohne describes as the individuals' desires for medial attention and their chance to self-realize their mundane existence in a virtual society. However, how can an avatar standout in the crowd when every other avatar is just as good-looking? As an alternative, I decided to stage myself in Second Life as a physically unattractive avatar.

By giving my avatar a physically unattractive figure, I thought to experiment and open up a perspective on the ethical subjects of shame, humiliation, and loss of self-confidence, which appears to be a significant issue in today's narcissist society as mentioned by Frohne. Similar to Micha Cardenas's use of Second Life as a way to explore the topic of gender transition, I wanted to interact with the virtual world to experience an issue of social inequality that was based on figure appearance and emotional insecurity.

At first, I tried out regular interactions by attempting to start a conversation several times among groups that I found in random worlds. My avatar's greeting got completely ignored at a clothing store, caused one group's conversation to cease for a minute, and got rejected when she went up to a guy and asked him to dance with her. Dell mentions in her article that, qualities that players acquire in virtual reality--whether it's confidence or insecurity--can affect their behavior in the real world. Although my character was a made-up figure that only existed in Second Life, the feedback I received was perceived as real, and my self-assurance decreased as I began to feel discouraged for my poor avatar.

Later on, I asked some individuals in Second Life whether their avatars represent themselves accurately and why they dress them up the way they do, and the common answer was, “to feel better about myself.” According to Dell, the way we view ourselves affects the confidence we display in the virtual world; yet everyone in Second Life tries to look as attractive as possible, not based on their level of insecurity but more so due to their sense of narcissism and the desire to be the center of their self-staged media, by extending encounters via the web and reinforcing their avatar's profiles in virtual life.

Criminalization of Anonymity and Tyranny of Intimacy

Erin Hoy and Miki Nobumori

Anonymity and Intimacy that is not made public or shared with mass media is currently perceived as a negative, untrustworthy, and undesirable circumstance.

From the perspective of the Criminalization of Anonymity, not being under the constant gaze of the surveillance camera, most likely means that that person has something criminal to hide. Society sees surveillance cameras as a source of protection and believes that law abiding people have no reason to avoid the gaze. Due to the consistency and control that the camera has, every unusual action is criminalized by the observer, who then becomes the "witness" of crimes that are caught on tape. Acceptance from the public eye leads to lessening of suspicion and formation of trust, and anonymity and privacy becomes an offense to society.


Within the concept of the tyranny of intimacy, the historical roles of the elite and the lower classes and how they control their intimacy and publicity have been reversed. Whereas the elite and those in power of societies used to conduct very public lives, essentially broadcasting their every action to the rest of the lower classes, today, it is more a sign of privileged wealth and power for the elite now to withhold that publicity and lead very private lives. In contrast, in order to achieve that eventually secluded status of the aristocratic, the common public attempt to make their every action immediately and constantly public to society so that they can achieve that power. To emerge from the generalized mass of the common public that no one knows intimate details about, these everyday men and women attempt to make more than ever their lives public, constantly mediated for society to see, so that they can become actual individuals that people do know facts about. Once they ironically become heavily mediated, only then can these 'commoners' feel important, and able to see a documented, recorded, evidence of their lives able to be played back at any moment, shared, and disseminated to thousands as well as themselves, can they feel a sense of their own self worth, knowing they are being seen.

To be anonymous therefore would mean that a person would have no chance of achieving power or control of their lives, while actually giving up every intimacy of their lives, in order to try to eventually gain it back once recognized as an elite.

Within both concepts, it seems that people give in to giving up their intimacy in order to feel a sense of power and control. People feel validated, secure, and safe knowing that they are constantly being watched. Their existence is acknowledged because they are under the gaze of the camera.


Examples:

For example, an elementary school girl was caught on camera hiding her classmate's shoes in a locker, and was penalized with a yellow card (three of these results in a suspension). The punishment for what appears to be a young child's playful joke, seems a bit severe for an eight-year old. The act of searching for the culprit through camera surveillance suddenly turns the ordinary childish accident into what Frohne describes as a crime scene where “control criminalizes everyone and everything and makes the observer a witness of chimerical crimes (269).” Rather than giving the “guilty” child a chance to come clean on her own, the teacher immediately turns to the camera to inspect misconducts of the classroom and search out the “thief.” Camera surveillance may provide a sense of protection for everyone, but what is recorded on camera is often over-exaggerated and criminalizes any negative deed that is caught on tape.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1111826/Caught-classroom-spy-camera--primary-school-pupil-hid-girls-shoes.html

An example of this dichotomy can be seen in how celebrities choose to have private weddings, versus how everyday brides try to purposefully highly publicize their weddings,including every part of planning it before it even happens to be on reality tv, as in the show Bridezillas on WeTV, where brides act like celebrities, like larger than life divas, or how they feel celebrity brides should behave.

Secret celebrity Weddings of Summer 2010:
http://www.popeater.com/2010/07/23/celebrity-weddings-2010/

Bridezillas:
http://www.wetv.com/bridezillas?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=bridezillas&utm_campaign=TV_Bridezillas

Frohne's concept of “criminalization of any actions caught under surveillance cameras”

When camera surveillance is everywhere and visible out in the open--in the streets, individuals' homes, and even primary school classrooms--people begin to accept the camera scrutiny as a sense of medialization rather than the over-powering glare from Big Brother. In countries such as England where society uses the camera to observe itself, they obtain a sense self assurance and protection from the camera eye. In the past, people feared surveillance due to the idea that a higher authority was watching every move they make, with the intention of catching any misbehavior and finally controlling all their activities. Now the role of the audience has shifted over to the public, and surveillance videos have joined the category of mainstream media. However, because the camera provides a source of permanent security, the issue of 'anonymity' rises and anything unfamiliar turns into a threat. When something unusual occurs and is viewed through the camera lens, the perspective on reality becomes twisted and society tends to turn any captured activity into a crime. Another reason why people criminalize anonymous behavior is because of the way camera surveillance constantly focuses on the same scene, allowing the observer to form a trust in the consistency of the view, and suggesting the possibility of a threatening activity occurring at the setting.
For example, an elementary school girl was caught on camera hiding her classmate's shoes in a locker, and was penalized with a yellow card (three of these results in a suspension). The punishment for what appears to be a young child's playful joke, seems a bit severe for an eight-year old. The act of searching for the culprit through camera surveillance suddenly turns the ordinary childish accident into what Frohne describes as a crime scene where “control criminalizes everyone and everything and makes the observer a witness of chimerical crimes (269).” Rather than giving the “guilty” child a chance to come clean on her own, the teacher immediately turns to the camera to inspect misconducts of the classroom and search out the “thief.” Camera surveillance may provide a sense of protection for everyone, but what is recorded on camera is often over-exaggerated and criminalizes any negative deed that is caught on tape.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1111826/Caught-classroom-spy-camera--primary-school-pupil-hid-girls-shoes.html

assignment #1: meeting 10 people on Chatroulette

9/30 8:28pm

My first encounter was with a guy from Australia. He was sitting in his living room and I could tell he was from the other side of the world because it seemed like it was the middle of the day for him. Our conversation started out slow. We told each other where we were from. It quickly got awkward because his facial expression wasn't changing at all and he didn't seem interested in talking to me. He then asked, “Do you do this often?” and I answered, “no.” He responded saying, “Thought so,” and ended the session. He was one of those who presented himself in banal reality (as mentioned by Sourkes), in a clear setting with no change at all in his movement, that there was definitely not much to see or ask. I suppose the same went for him since I was nervous and presented myself as very ordinary.

10/2 3:59pm

I decided to have my second try at a time in the afternoon, hoping that there would be less obscene encounters than the previous night. This time, it was a man from Stockholm, Sweden. Similar to the first guy, this man seemed to have an inexpressive face. Eventually, the webcam view began to look creepy because all I could see was his head and nothing below. To add to the emptiness of the view, the wall behind him was blank and there was no background to support my image of him. He then said, “Do you want to see something?” and began to shift his webcam downwards. I noticed that he had no shirt on and I quickly moved on to the next. This man was a prepared performer who wanted to be seen, so he created a short narrative where he first formed a sense of fear through the unknown, and then used his webcam to uncover the unknown. The way he included camera movement to his narrative made his “performance” similar to a cinema.

10/2 4:10pm

Next was a 17 years old boy from Germany. At first, I wasn't sure if he was really chatting with me because he was facing a different angle and didn't change his facial expression at all. Our conversation was fairly normal and constant, and I was less nervous because he was younger than me. Out of no where, he began saying, “plz show,” and kept repeating that phrase over and over, but with absolutely no facial expression. Instead, he frequently used smiley faces in his conversation, but what he was saying didn't match his face at all. His indifferent expression confused me and put me off; it seemed as if didn't acknowledge that he was viewed by us, but was purely being a spectator.

10/2 4:20pm

This man(?) from UK displayed a blurry wall in place of his face. I asked him why he hid his face, and he said it was because he didn't have any clothes on. Unlike the other naked guys, this man wasn't as bold as the other “exhibitionists” who displayed themselves openly. But while he wasn't willing to reveal his intimate self physically, he was more open to me through words. He told me that he wasn't confident in his body and that's why he hid himself. Because I wasn't talking to a person's face, the experience was more virtual rather than realistic. I actually felt more comfortable chatting to this man because his identity was unclear therefore unrealistic.

10/2 4:34pm

Next, I got two guys from Texas who seemed to be college students. They immediately started joking around in excitement, making racist comments and yelling about Texas pride. Eventually they calmed down and began to be more friendly. After a few minutes of chitchatting, one of the guys performed a Dave Matthews song on his guitar for us. Unlike the other guys who went on Chatroulette alone, these guys seemed more open about showing their identities and personalities in front of the camera. I think that generally, people are more at ease to performing for the webcam when they have friends as spectators on their side. On the other hand, performing alone in front of the webcam is different because the seer is mediated by the virtual, and the immediate spectator is merely a recording device.

10/4 10:20am

I decided to try it earlier this time, in the late morning, to see if I'd get different types of people. I got another no-face; this time the camera was facing the window. This person wouldn't say where he/she was from, and I couldn't exactly tell their gender. He/she spoke in broken English, and it sounded like he/she was making up most of the things in our chat. This person was using the webcam to invent their identity and 'try out' a new one, but wasn't too smooth in making it sound realistic. This Chatroulette session was more abstract than the other ones because I couldn't form in my mind an imaginary figure of who I was talking to.

10/4 5: 45pm

This girl lookedreally bored and uninterested. She asked me why I was on Chatroulette so I explained that it was for an art class. I asked her the same thing and she said she was bored and was looking for something entertaining and fun. She sounded like she was only browsing to find something to watch, similar to flipping channels of the television. I asked if she was willing to “be seen” as well, and she just shrugged and said, “sure, it's not like I'm ever gonna see them again.” She was wiling to push the certain limit because she knew that there was no consequences for her in the real world.

10/4 5:48pm

Next was some guy from Colorado. This was the first person who actually waved at me when the chat first opened up. He told me he used to live in California, so he was easier for me to relate to. He was a college student as well, and our conversation went on ordinarily. Soon enough we ran out of things to say because our encounter became more immediate. There was no unknown or mysteriousness, and eventually there was nothing interesting left to see to say.

10/4 10:08pm

My ninth try was with another young guy. He seemed creepy, sitting in a dark room with his face lit up from the computer screen. He said that the most interesting thing he's seen on Chatroulette was naked women. I asked why his view was so dark, and he said it was to hide his face. I asked, “why not block his face completely,” and he answered that women will “skip” him unless his face was showing. Unlike Jennifer Ringley who did not care what her viewers looked like, some performers on Chatroulette do care who they perform to, and seem to only do a show for people who show themselves.

10/4 10:11pm

My last person I met was a man from Hungary, who seemed to be working in his office at home. He said he was trying it out because his nephew told him about it. I asked for his thoughts on Chatroulette, and he responded saying that it was interesting to meet people from around the world. He also said that next time, he might disguise himself because he feels uncomfortable being displayed in the open, and he'd rather pretend like he's someone else. His idea can be tied to Sourke's idea of the “reconstruction of the self” and playing with one's identity. Although this man probably thought of this idea for privacy reasons, his actions can give him an opportunity to play as a performer.