Asian Avatars.

[Yosho Sirnah]

11 hours ago, Chie Salome said:

Thread got derailed but here's my contribution, including some non-conforming avatars.  Reptilian is the new Asian you know.

I'm a Japanese and although most of the Japanese friends I have on SL don't really look Asian (why stick to RL when you are in SL!), I tend to keep making my avatars look Asian because it used to be a fun challenge to make Asian avatars that actually look Asian and the habit stuck with me.   Back in the days I had to be creative as there was literally no decent Asian skin in the market.  These days we have tons of gorgeous Asian skins coming out almost daily from various creators, so the challenge is gone but the fun remains.

To OP:  Your avatar looks very pretty with south-east Asian vibes.  We may look very different depending on the geographical locations and origins but we have so much more important things in common -- like passionate love for rice🤣 

 

Thank you for contribution. I really love your avi, especially your profile pic. She's so lovely. Thank you for sharing with us.

[Nightingalia]

I know the conversation in the beginning of the thread is over, but I want to explain why people have such a strong reaction to "asian avas that don't look fully east asian", because from some other threads I've seen on SL as well as other "asian race benders" IRL, some non-east asian people have a low-key offensive idea of what asians look like. They just slap small/slanted eyes on an otherwise Caucasian bone structure.

However I agree that "asian" should also include south east asians as well as India, so it's true that there is no one true "what an asian looks like". East asians on the other hand do follow similar beauty standards/face structures.

Anyways, your ava looks super cute Yosho Sirnah, and I can see the asian in her. We see mixed bloods as very pretty

Here's my ava from 2019. I just got back into SL yesterday so I haven't had a chance to explore all the new options yet. Back then most asian skins were for Catwa, which is what I'm wearing here but the bone structure is obviously Caucasian. I could just be super ***** about faces tho cuz I'm a portrait artist IRL.

Something else that bothers me is that the only mesh heads that look solidly eat-asian are ones with monolids.... T_T I guess there isn't big enough demand for asian double-lids correctly done.



 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Nightingalia

[Yosho Sirnah]

6 hours ago, Nightingalia said:

I know the conversation in the beginning of the thread is over, but I want to explain why people have such a strong reaction to "asian avas that don't look fully east asian", because from some other threads I've seen on SL as well as other "asian race benders" IRL, some non-east asian people have a low-key offensive idea of what asians look like. They just slap small/slanted eyes on an otherwise Caucasian bone structure.

However I agree that "asian" should also include south east asians as well as India, so it's true that there is no one true "what an asian looks like". East asians on the other hand do follow similar beauty standards/face structures.

Anyways, your ava looks super cute Yosho Sirnah, and I can see the asian in her. We see mixed bloods as very pretty

Here's my ava from 2019. I just got back into SL yesterday so I haven't had a chance to explore all the new options yet. Back then most asian skins were for Catwa, which is what I'm wearing here but the bone structure is obviously Caucasian. I could just be super ***** about faces tho cuz I'm a portrait artist IRL.

Something else that bothers me is that the only mesh heads that look solidly eat-asian are ones with monolids.... T_T I guess there isn't big enough demand for asian double-lids correctly done.

Thank you for sharing with us, I greatly appreciate it. Your avi is so beautiful! I love her eyes. Also thank you for your compliment, I'm glad you can see her as mixed because that's precisely what I was going for.

As for the previous conversation, I have learned and gained an understanding as to what was really wrong, so I understand the frustration. I never meant to offend anyone at all and I have grown from this experience.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Yosho Sirnah

[Orwar]

   Asia is a large place, and there's no real one, universal answer for what Asia really is; different countries teach different versions of what the continents are in their school curriculums, in some places they only recognise 5 continents (America, Eurasia, Antarctica, Africa, Australia/Oceania), others say there are 6 or 7, and when I was growing up there was a lot of arguing about whether Turkey and Russia were 'European' or 'Asian'. Tectonically speaking, Europe and Asia are just either end of the same place - whereas India is its own thing that got chunked into it (hence the Himalayas), and Kamchatka (and a part of Russia's eastern part that I don't know what to call) is 'actually' part of America. 

   There's also a bit of a conundrum with the topic, in my mind. On the one hand, I can completely understand the desire to celebrate and show off an underrepresented ethnicity in Second Life - but on the other, things usually get sour when perceived as ethnic exclusion. There's been a fair amount of discussion in the past as to whether it's appropriate to make an avatar of a different ethnicity than one's real one, with some saying that obviously it doesn't matter because no one knows who's behind an avatar until they themselves give it away - and others saying that white people absolutely shouldn't make avatars identifiable as 'ethnic minorities' (which, seeing as Second Life has a global audience, would mean .. Caucasian?), or wear tattoos with Asian or Polynesian cultural or mythological influences, or wear dreadlocks, because someone might get awfully offended - usually on someone else's behalf.