forum: 'Bodies' in Second Life

I wrote this a little while ago in response to the question of identity in 'virtual worlds'. I thought it might be of relevance. It's a bit rough, so apologies...

Considering the speed at which new Internet technologies are being adopted, particularly in the West, the example of virtual communities in the form of Social Networking Sites, will, I am sure be obsolete. The population of the ‘virtual world’ is constantly growing and changing in its makeup, as the studies of MUDs and Usenet groups show, attempts to describe how the Internet is used are only temporarily relevant. As soon as the populace grows beyond narrow groupings of, for example ‘white, male, tech-savvy loners’ the way the technology is used will change. It seems that the notion of a virtual world where race and gender were an irrelevance, where one could transcend the boundaries of the physical ‘self’ only held true when the majority of users were of the groups, historically privileged with being ‘race and gender-less’ – white males.

To declare the Internet a raceless, genderless place ignores the significance that race and gender still play in the real world experience of its users. The Internet could only become a raceless and genderless place, when relationships in the real world are no longer build on such simplistic binaries. Furthermore, given the history of imperialism so bound up in the culture that gave birth to the Internet is seems impossible not to recognise the imperialistic tendencies that lie in euphoric claims that within the claims that new technologies render nations obsolete. Websites such as blackplanet.net; cyworld.com and mixi.com all reflect very ‘real world’ communities and peoples.

The Internet is an interesting liminal zone – a place of convergence between real world identities and physical geographies – that will affect the consciousness of some users, yet those who get to travel in this liminal zone will still become ‘settlers’ or ‘vagabonds’ (Morley, D 2001) in direct relationship with their experiences of physical reality, economics, geography, race or class.

I have taken the liberty to announce this thread to the group The Digital Body. We have just set it up to follow-up on the Methods Network sponsored workshop Whole Body Interaction: The Future of the Human Body. Unfortunately, I could only attend the first day, but I think they discussed similar questions on the second day...

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Torsten Reimer
http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk

One interesting look at virtual bodies and gender issues is presented in Barbie with Brains. It's been a while since I looked at the screencast, but if memory serves, the researcher created an avatar based on a Barbie doll and worked in a dance club. She also used the avatar in other places in 2nd Life.

Her experiences were interesting, but mostly they just reinforced the point that others have made on this thread: for most people virtual worlds don't operate that differently that the real world in terms of body image, race, gender, and identity.

Eric

what a great thread!
im glad i have seen this as this is one third of my dissertation!
i joined second life around july and it took me a couple of months to semi sort out my avatar.
in the beginning, the clothes would just not load and i was walking around in my birthday suit.. but thats another story.
the people ive spoken to about their avatar, just under half of them admit their character does not look like them and felt they wanted to be someone they are not.
one way of interpreting this is deception, the other, curiosity.
from what ive seen, everyone looks the same in terms of body build, this isnt expressing something they aspire to be.. they are just turning into virtual clones!