The Symbolism of Avatars
I was introduced to Second Life by Thoth Jantzen. We met on a text messaging system called Sonork. I still think that Sonork was a pinnacle of text messaging - Second Life's text messaging if quite primitive in comparison
Years before I came to Second Life Thoth introduced me to an earlier virtual reality. I forget it's name. It might even have been an earlier version of Second Life. It was a 3d space that you could move around in but the avatars were simple shapes like colored cubes or spheres.
Those systems enabled conversations among people scattered around the globe - literally.
But the ability to hold on line conversations predates even the internet. Once I used the Fidonet which was run by ham radio enthusiasts and that provided message boards. Small communities would converse via the message boards.
On the internet email enabled things called mailing lists. One would send a message to a central address which would then bounce the message to a big list of people. Each response would be bounced out to the whole list. Newsgroups grew out of that capability, The conversations were wide ranging and interesting. Also newsgroups enabled the first trolls - people not interested in a topic but more interested in provoking reactions. I was astonished to see just how hurtful speech can be.
Second Life adds a whole new dimension to those conversation based media. We have avatars that can move around in a pretty elaborate 3d space. The avatars add a whole new dimension.
There is nothing on a mailing list that is like the experience of sitting around a table with friends having a discussion with all the tools of the web at our disposal.
Since the first time I came to Second Life I've been interested in the symbolism of avatars. For a while I didn't really think about my own avatar much - I just took a free one. One day a friend said that I need a new body. You need to stop looking like a dork she said. And took me to a store that sold bodies.
My own appearance now is pretty symbolic. It harkens back to Twilight - the first place that Thothica called home. I've got my twilight bell bottoms. My shirt shows a penrose tiling. Penrose tilings illustrate an important philosophic point for me - they show unpredictable determinism. In RL I always wanted hair like Simulat wears. I have a Thothica pendant which for a while we gave out to anyone who joined our group.
Second Life is a place for conversation and building to me. I like presenting exhibitions of pictures. (New show coming in a couple of weeks). For me, Second Life is kind of an extension of my real life. Lots of people see it as a place to indulge fantasies. This has all kinds of dimensions. Some people get into role playing, Others try on different genders and races, Others appear as animals or birds or spiders.
I think that the symbols people attach to their avatar says something about the paratar (the person running the avatar). Dr Freud would be very interested:-) Of course - the problem is interpreting what the symbols mean.
These days I don't encounter many non-humanoid avatars. The ones I do encounter have been uniformly bad news. I can't generalize about that since my experience in SL is actually pretty restricted - I go to a few places full of old SL hands like me who are here for the conversation.
What do you think
I open the floor
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.