This blog is about The
article Alter Egos: Avatar and Their Creators, by Julian Dibbell. In this
article the author writes about how easy it is for a person to create an avatar
for an online video game. The people interviewed in this article all have
avatars very different from their own identity.
One of the gamers is a male teacher in South Korea. His newest avatar is
a female. He claims the female avatar sells more gloves, than having a male
avatar. I thought this was interesting because, even in real life females get
more business than males. People say a female bartender will make much more
money bartending than a male bartender. Another
example of these avatars being completely different from their creators is the
guy from Texas. He even says the difference is pretty obvious. This kid has
many physical disabilities, and says in the video game he can do things he can’t
do in real life. He also thinks that
online people can learn the player’s personality and make their opinion of
them. When in real life the first thing a person biases their opinion of a
person off is their appearance. He says
online it doesn’t matter what you look like. I think that’s interesting and I
agree with the kid. I feel more comfortable talking to a person who appears to
have the same interests in me than one who looks completely different. He said at the “Ultimate Online Fan Faire”
people treated him like everyone else. Another person is the girl from
California. In her game her avatar is a big black male. This is another example
of a complete opposite in appearance between the avatar and creator. She said
she did it because she gets treated differently appearing to be a male than a
female. Most guys wouldn’t want to get beat by a girl avatar, or let the female
be the leader.
All of these people have
one thing in common with their avatars. They are all complete opposites of
themselves. I don’t blame them though because it is just an online game. But these people really go into detail why
their avatars are the way they are. I
have played Xbox and seen other characters and never really considered who they
were.
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