July 25, 2007
Academics Chat About Their Digital Appearances
A group of educators gathered around a campfire in Second Life’s Boracay Island this week to chat about the appearances of their avatars, their digital alter egos. Beth Ritter-Guth, who teaches English and women’s studies at Lehigh Carbon Community College, and in Second Life is the glamorous, blonde Desideria Stockton, dressed for the occasion in a purple gown. She adopted her look to research how women would treat an intellectual Barbie. “I looked in my niece’s Barbie bag and buy only clothes that are like the clothes in her bag,” she said.
“The real Beth is much less glitzy and thus doesn’t experience the blond jokes or the cutesy-pie crap” that Desideria experiences, she added.
Alan Levine, a vice president at the New Media Consortium, said he adopted the avatar known as CDB Barkley, who is half-human, half-dog, because he uses dog metaphors a lot for blogging.
“It’s my own play on the old New Yorker cartoon about ‘on the Net no one knows you are a dog,’” he said.
The chat was briefly interrupted when a provocatively dressed avatar named Clare Lane sat on the campfire.
“Clare, watch you don’t become toast,” someone else told her.
“It looked like a chair!” she replied. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Wednesday July 25, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Facebook Faces a Lawsuit
Next: Facebook Links Create Surge in Web Traffic
hahaha this is news
— Spanky Context Jul 26, 10:39 AM #
Well, here’s the news. The discussion was very well attended, and was not only lively and engaging, but quite useful, addressing topics such as identity, professional standards, gender and sexuality issues, and so much more. As educators are moving into SL by the dozens, these kinds of loose mass conversations are amazingly efficient, helpful and productive, and promote increased collaboration among educators. And these kinds of events are happening all the time in SL. People end up sitting on the campfire all the time at these things because they try to sit on a seat that is occupied, and the occupant has not yet been drawn in their viewer. As amusing as that was, it was hardly noticed by the 3 or 4 dozen people deeply engaged in the conversation.
— Joskie Despres Jul 28, 02:00 AM #
Anyone who thinks that a digital avatar can be “provocatively dressed” should seriously consider getting psychotherapy. We used to have a name for the boys who got too excited reading Betty and Veronica. We called them pervs. As for the women (or men?) who sartorially (and apparently, sexually) identify with their avatar….I’d suggest getting a first life before you enter a second.
— marci Jul 30, 02:52 PM #