Do you incorporate RL aspects into your Avy/SL

[Marigold Devin]

I thought when I created my avatar in Second Life that it would be cool to look nothing like real life me, and had purple hair. When my next door neighbour in real life dyed her hair purple, I realised how rididulous it was, and bought hair that was more representative of real life me - always ginger tones. But as I rarely have curly hair in real life, I sometimes chose to have curly hair in Second Life. 

In real life I like Def Leppard. In Second Life I sometimes wear a Def Leppard tee shirt. 

In real life I am chubby, but in my head I am as I was when I was in my 20s, so my avatar is representative of how I feel most happy and comfortable in my own head. 

The hair colour is fading. My avatar's hair is now white/blonde with coloured tips. Maybe I will do this in real life also. 

Sometimes I am a cockatiel in Second Life, or a cat, or a box, or a scary tree.  Sometimes in real life I wish I were something inanimate, or a fly on the wall. 

[Rudegerus Osterham]

There aren't many RL things left in my SL shape. I am tall in RL, so my shape is tall. I used to have long hair, so my AV has long hair. 

I tend to dress the same as in RL, but that is because I have a hard time finding SL outfits I really like, or can pull off.

[ballparkdogg]

I try not to be fake in SL but my SL avatar doesnt look like me.  I do things in SL that I would do in RL.  But my most of my time and how I look are things I would not do.  I try  not to imitate RL.   If I have an SL relationship most times they are open relationships and so on..

[Lolita Uldarmann]

Although my avatar doesn't look identical to my RL self, there are some similarities: big eyes, full lips, and tan skin. Sometimes I dye my RL hair to be the same colour as my SL self. 

Personality wise I am the same. I find it way too confusing to be someone else, so I stick to what I know! 

[Kitkat Starlight]

I have one saved in my files, that's very close to the irl me, however, my first Sl husband, only got to see it, and plan to keep it that way. how I look, is purely out of creativity

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 11/19/2019 at 11:20 AM, MayaSmit said:

It’s an interesting question and I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s responses. Obviously everyone is different, playing SL for different reasons, and of course I think you can draw as much or as little of your RL self into your SL as you wish. There shouldn’t be any limit on this (anyone who criticises an SL resident for misrepresenting themselves in-world has totally missed the point of SL as far as I’m concerned!!!).

Physically In RL I am quite pale, petite and skinny with blonde hair and blue eyes. All these traits I either don’t mind or actually like about myself so I’ve noticed that this carries over into my SL appearance. Even when I try out new things, I always seem to gravitate back to my skin tone, size, hair and eye colour.

What’s different? I enjoy making myself more curvaceous in SL, the curves I don’t have but wish I did in RL. Equally my hair in SL is way longer and more voluminous, the way I wish my hair would be in RL too. I also dress more flamboyantly because I can do so confidently without fear of judgement or reproach.

Personality-wise is where I have a stronger opinion. As much as you may try to adopt a different personality in SL I genuinely don’t believe this is something you can seriously maintain for any length of time, before your real personality slips in!

What’s interesting for me is that I’m sure many people feel more free to express themselves in SL than in RL. So certain personality traits are amplified and allowed to blossom, and this is actually your true personality being given an opportunity to shine rather than being repressed as it might be in RL. This is one of the amazing things about SL! You could almost be considered a truer reflection of your real self in this virtual world than you are in day to day life!

Having said that, I’d be very keen to explore more RP in SL, as I love to act and play different characters! But if you meet me in-world and we chat, there’s no way you’re getting anything other than the real me, for better or worse! 😉

Very well said.

[Nick0678]

My avatar was/is mostly used for my business here so i made it properly stereotyped for that.

It has  chocolate skin, dark hair, brown eyes (if i remember well haven't removed those shades for years),

got full body tattoos , it's 2.25m/7.37feet tall and  OF COURSE like 99% of male avatars here has a 6 pack

that even Schwarzenegger when he became Mr Olympia would be jealous of.

In real life i am pale or brown tanned , salty haired (used to be dark/brown),  got blue eyes, no tattoos

i am 1.76m/5.78feet and OF COURSE DONT have that 6 pack.

(fortunately i still remain fit by doing basic exercises and avoiding alcohol/sugar drinks)

 

The majority of people that i happen to know how they look RL cause i met them or had Skype Video calls

with them neither look similar to their "human" avatars and that's fine cause we all know SL is a game.

(Some think they do and its ok , nothing wrong with having a wild imagination.)

[Stephanie Calavera]

SL and RL have always blended together somewhat for me, and it's for that reason that my personality in SL is exactly the same as it is in RL. Looks wise, I'm Agender/non-binary in RL--so in SL I can be either feminine or androgynous depending on my mood. I try to wear glasses as often as I can, or so long as hair plays nice with them--don't stray too much from my hair colour in RL--and other aspects are pretty close to my "femme" RL self. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Nastasha Szaberwick

[MillyWH]

the only things about my avatar that are close to my RL (on a regular basis) are my height, which was just coincidental and if I'm using human skin I'm Caucasian. That's it.

 

I also change my looks so frequently there are times when I may  look a little closer to some aspect of my RL but it's not on purpose. 

 

Using a previous avatar there was a time when I looked more like my RL self but it felt unnatural in SL because that isn't who my avatar is, at least looks wise.  Plus this is Second Life  and you can do so many different things! I hate limiting myself

[Calamity Conundrum]

I created this avatar a few months ago with the specific purpose of looking like me in real life! I have been in SL for 12 years on my first avatar, and it has the works - fancy mesh everything, a myriad of hairstyles, skins, clothing, etc. I loved being anything and everything I dreamt of! I still use that avatar for dressing up, roleplaying, and experimenting with being something and someone else when the mood strikes (and they have all my stuff!). This one is a way for me to be be in the metaverse, and I use them for exploring, building, and re-living the SL experience. I enjoy having the option! 🐱

[Lysana McMillan]

My principal look is loosely based on my RL face. The body is idealized but not skinny. Also taller than me, but I like the balance and proportions I have. I'm also roughly the same ethnicity in appearance. I am pale as fsck in RL and I've never been comfortable with wearing tanned skin. The closest I ever diverged from that was when I wore a DrLife skin that was based on someone who was half-white and half-Japanese. My hair has varied. I used to wear any dang color I felt like. Then I standardized on brunette. Switched around a couple of times before landing on my current blue-black/jet hair bias.

The one thing I've wanted to match my RL that took years for me to find was my eye color. Trichromatic green (gray outer rim, gold-brown inner) was unfindable for years. I flitted around colors until I found the first good version of that eye pattern.

[Jennifer Boyle]

My avatar has my RL character. Her personality is different; she is far less inhibited.  Her body is very different: she is younger, prettier, more buxom, and has a nicer body in other ways. She dresses differently, in much sexier clothes.

[shiviex]

Incorporating RL aspects into my avi? Nah.

I get too bored from a single look, I like to keep changing. But my avi is mostly an asian one, like me in RL

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Yep, I have my RL tattoo.

[kolllya]

I pretty much copied my entire RL look into SL

[kagudark]

Into the way my avie looks? Not at all! In fact, my avatar is of a character that exists in another medium so physically it is very far removed from myself.

Yet when it comes to my avies personality then I can say completely that's all me.

[Tamanni]

Despite being a furry most of the time, yes I do; there are some aspects of me-now (short and fairly plump with greyish/light-brown hair) and of me when I was in my early 20s (punk/goth clothing style, hair often dyed red or partly-red). My avatar has the amount of tattoos I want in RL, not the amount I actually have. I'd have more in RL if they weren't so darned expensive. Personality-wise, I'm closer in SL to my 22-year-old self than my 50-something-year-old self. But I'm still "me", beneath the fur.

 

[Yuumo Ichibara]

On 7/31/2020 at 12:42 AM, shiviex said:

But my avi is mostly an asian one, like me in RL

Same. Though I sometimes low-key wish I was born Scandinavian or Nordic irl, every time I tried to make my AV look like she’s from another race, I end up not liking it. There was a phase in my 1st life that I splurged on silly things like hair bleaching and contact lenses to look partly Caucasian, but ironically on SL I spend the same amount in Linden making my AV look unmistakably Asian lol

My ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation (staunch heterosexual, but I stylize myself as a gay man trapped in a woman’s body so I made a fem-boi alt for that side of me lol) are the only RL aspects of me that are also consistent in SL. Everything else is just a stark contrast to who I am irl; my AV is baby-faced, petite and disproportionately curvy, plastered with tattoos, wears a lot of outlandish and provocative outfits, smokes 24/7 — I quit years ago in real and abhor second-hand smoke).

She also plays dragon lady-esque characters in RP sims that deal with crime, drugs, violence, etc. basically an absolute pixel-deviant. Sometimes I question whether that IS my true persona because I suspect everything we do on SL is a mere projection of our current psychological state blended with everything we secretly wish to experience in the first life but cannot due to obvious limitations...

[Rabid Cheetah]

Aviwise?  I've got a lot of avis piled up over the years.  Some are not anything like RL me, but rather character concepts from roleplaying games, such as my elven princess or blood-covered axe-weilding beserker dude -- which were a lot of fun, because I made them myself.  Some are self-made attempts to make various superheroes.  Some are store-bought versions of that.  I recently came across a cheap sound file/walker that plays the Batman themesong when you walk or run, so I pulled out my old classic Batgirl costume and spent a few hours running all over Bellisseria with that music blasting, hee hee!  Now, I may live in "Keep Portland Weird" in RL, but I'm not about to dress up like Batgirl, carry a boom box playing, "Batman!  Batman!" over and over, and run through residential neighborhoods while laughing maniacally.  As to my just-plain-human avis, some look like me, some don't.  Plus RL me has changed her clothing and hair styles a lot over fourteen years, so it's not just the wide variety of avis that make me say "no" to your question.

Storywise, though, I did have an art exhibit up once about my heart operation.  That said, none of my avis have a heart bypass scar between my boobs.  I much prefer my line of kisses tattoo there.  🙂  I don't have a tat like that in RL.

Here is the avi that looks most like me in real life.  No, really.  For real.  Looks just like me.  Yes, that's really Second Life, circa 2009, before mesh.  Really.  And I can do that in real life.

[Sprout Evergarden]

Defiantly not  I tried it once but the  Weaboo Japan fetishists became annoying. so I try to look like anything but my RL self in SL  one can only take so many creeps.

[gensaku]

No, I'm totally different SL and RL. As I always say, I only roleplay here, so I want to run away from my real life while in world.

I keep my avatar as thin as I am because I like it that way! But my avatar is beautiful, I would never create her as ugly as I am (enough bullying in RL). She is also much younger than me and has the personality I wish I had if I was not so shy RL.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, gensaku said:

I keep my avatar as thin as I am because I like it that way! But my avatar is beautiful, I would never create her as ugly as I am (enough bullying in RL). She is also much younger than me and has the personality I wish I had if I was not so shy RL.

There are so many different kinds of beauty, I think -- and only a tiny fraction of them are recognized by the greater majority of people. We've been conned by social conditioning and car ads and fashion magazines to the point that we are almost blind to other standards and ways of thinking about the beautiful. And we know that cultural standards for beauty are illusions because they are continually changing.

Your avatar is beautiful, and I hope you are enjoying her. But I'm pretty sure you are too. Your voice here is beautiful, and your shyness.

Enjoy the opportunity to be one kind of gorgeous here, but don't denigrate yourself because there are idiots in RL who are blind to your own unique beauty.

And thank you for posting here. I'm glad I've met you, even if it's only here.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 9/13/2020 at 2:08 AM, Rabid Cheetah said:

 For real.  Looks just like me.  Yes, that's really Second Life, circa 2009, before mesh.  Really.  And I can do that in real life.

Is this you as well?

 

https://www.wallpaperflare.com/blindfolded-woman-aiming-bow-with-feet-wallpaper-fantasy-archer-wallpaper-hmmaj

Edited September 25, 2020 by Tarina Sewell

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

Not one bit like my rl self. I am much to beautiful in real life to infect others with my awesomeness and sexuality. I might break SL.

[gensaku]

17 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There are so many different kinds of beauty, I think -- and only a tiny fraction of them are recognized by the greater majority of people. We've been conned by social conditioning and car ads and fashion magazines to the point that we are almost blind to other standards and ways of thinking about the beautiful. And we know that cultural standards for beauty are illusions because they are continually changing.

Your avatar is beautiful, and I hope you are enjoying her. But I'm pretty sure you are too. Your voice here is beautiful, and your shyness.

Enjoy the opportunity to be one kind of gorgeous here, but don't denigrate yourself because there are idiots in RL who are blind to your own unique beauty.

And thank you for posting here. I'm glad I've met you, even if it's only here.

Thank you, Scylla! I wish more people would think like you!