Thursday, December 4, 2014

Examining Gender, Race, and Body Image in a Virtual World

I've Arrived in the Aloha world in Second Life with my usual avatar. 

Someone saying hello to me. 
Several other people said hi while I was in these worlds. I was not interested in engaging in conversations with strangers on the internet, so I just moved on after I reviewed some interaction. 

Next I teleported to the Ferry Terminal. The avatar in the very back of the screenshot was dancing pretty crazy and actually danced right into and around me.


Avatar Change

I chose another classic female avatar, but I made her slightly overweight and short. 

I went to a very busy world, which I found by pressing the home button, and not a single person initiated conversation with me while I was there. When I had a more "attractive" avatar people paid attention to me. It is silly because you can make an avatar to portray yourself however you feel. A supermodel in real life could design a plain avatar, and vice-versa. You have no idea who is behind the avatar. 

This is an exercise to see how people act toward different people in virtual worlds. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc










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