How old in terms of "physical age" do you think the average adult human avatar is?

[EliseAnne85]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But hoo-mon avatars are weird anyway.

Yesh.  And, I'd suppose others may think the non-hoomans are weird.  The thing with the Dinkies and Tinies of the Shire is age is not a factor as we have no agenda other than we are interacting in a 3-D virtual chat room with others whom may become friends but it's not a big commitment friendship type of thing.  It's more like had a great time, see you soon, real life comes first kind of thing.  Age, for Dinkies and Tinies I've never thought of once.  This would have been a more interesting question in relation to mmos or mmorgs would be in regards to the non-hooman almost all of whom approach another with no agenda whatsoever.  It's an interesting dynamic how that changes from human to non-human here in SL anyways where one can actually run a hooman avatar.  Many phone "games" cannot run hooman form well if at all.

Edited December 8, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Gopi Passiflora]

9 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

To the OP: Why? What is the point of topics like these?  I'd really like to know.

Well, everyone who answered you gave a basic idea of my intent: I just wanted to know people's opinions and have a discussion. @Maitimogave a good analysis as to why I post these questions (although I'm not sure if I'm really on the spectrum because my therapist said I'm not. However, I believe I have OCD so I do focus on one topic in particular.)

I apologize for not replying since then, I don't really have anything to add after people post their opinions. I'll try to reply more if there's an opinion I find interesting.

[Nick0678]

Male avatars usually look like in their 30s-40s unless it's the japanese teen-early20's looking ones.

Female avatars used to look 20s-30s but nowadays lots of them combine

childlike facial characteristics with adult bodies, so it's difficult to say.

Not sure why they make them like that but it's a game so all is cool, if it was real it definitely would look awkward.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Maitimo said:

 I personally hope they keep asking; the questions are always interesting.

If not interesting enough for someone, they eventually post, "the REAL question is..", or "what would be MORE interesting is..".

[Love Zhaoying]

22 minutes ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

I apologize for not replying since then, I don't really have anything to add after people post their opinions. I'll try to reply more if there's an opinion I find interesting.

Just don't "ghost us"!

[EliseAnne85]

30 minutes ago, Nick0678 said:

Not sure why they make them like that but it's a game so all is cool

I think it has something to do with "anime" which is Asian cartoon in origin.  Sexualized children, basically.  However, there are some "anime's" who may make their body look like an alien or something rather than an adult hyper-sexualized woman.   I don't find it "so cool".  It's an avoid to me.

Age of avatars may have to do with their hooman vanity at it's roots.  The hooman's are very vain.  Dinkies and Tinies like to look nice also but are not as obsessed with the vanity of it all.   We don't care if you wear a paper sack on your head, frankly.  It's how you treat others that matters.  

Edited December 8, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Nick0678]

10 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I think it has something to do with "anime" which is Asian cartoon in origin.  Sexualized children, basically.  However, there are some "anime's" who may make their body look like an alien or something rather than an adult hyper-sexualized woman.   I don't find it "so cool".  It's an avoid to me.

Age of avatars may have to do with their hooman vanity at it's roots.  The hooman's are very vain.  Dinkies and Tinies like to look nice also but are not as obsessed with the vanity of it all.   

Yes but i wasn't speaking about the Anime looking ones, those have their own category and won't classify as realistic human.

[Maitimo]

47 minutes ago, Nick0678 said:

Female avatars used to look 20s-30s but nowadays lots of them combine childlike facial characteristics with adult bodies, so it's difficult to say.

Not sure why they make them like that but it's a game so all is cool, if it was real it definitely would look awkward.

I think it mostly goes a bit like this -

User is 25 and female in RL. She wants her avatar to look about 20 so she aims for a look that's about 5 years younger-looking than her RL self. What she is blissfully unaware of however, is that she actually looks closer to 17 than to 25 in RL, so she ends up making an avatar than now looks like it's actually 12 yet sincerely believes that it looks like 20. 

It's actually no surpsise that the trend for hyper-curvy bodies has taken over. There's no way anyone would believe these avatars weren't children, if they used Maitreya bodies.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Maitimo

[EliseAnne85]

12 minutes ago, Nick0678 said:

Yes but i wasn't speaking about the Anime looking ones, those have their own category and won't classify as realistic human.

Oh, ok, I think it became a thing because of anime.  They (users of this type of child/adult avatar) wanted a more realistic looking child head than the anime ones.  It's a progression of anime into real child face and it has a lot to do with the skin and shaper.  To me, it seems the biggest seller in SL because it's always there in what people are buying now.  Will it gain the potential of acceptability overall as cool?  I don't know.  I'm not in the slex scene or mating or dating scene anyways.  Just 3D chatting and having fun or even sharing a feeling is what's for me.  

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Ags Falconer said:

PS: puberty started 2 years ago 😉

Oh **** . . .

[Rowan Amore]

11 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

sincerely believes that it looks like 20.

I highly doubt this in most cases.  Just my opinion.  It all seemed to start when the whole SL DD/bg nonsense became the IN thing to do.  

[Janet Voxel]

I’d say late 20’s-ish…I’m stopping there because I feel late 20’s-ish. Sometimes it’s the skin and head combo that can make an avi appear younger. So I’ve been trying to give my facial features a little more definition and have them a little less rounded to age up some.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I think, based solely on my personal experience, that there is a great deal more variability in the ages men represent in SL. I see many more "older" men in SL than I do older women.

There are reasons for that. First is that, for whatever reason, it seems to be easier to age male avatars well. I'd love to represent as mid or even late 30s, but it's difficult to find skins or add-ons that can catch that subtlety well. I wear crow's feet and eyebags, and I've tried wrinkles and laugh lines (which don't look great), but in general a woman can look in her 20s here, or in her 70s, with not a lot of play between those ages.

The second reason is that, as a culture, we've decided that men age "better" than women. This is particularly evident in the fashion and film industries. Men over about 35 start to look "distinguished" and "craggy," while women, we're told, just look . . . old.

Related to this second reason, and to what Rowan says above, is a tendency to sexually infantilize women. Older men with much younger partners are pretty acceptable; older women with younger men are derided as "cougars," or worse. That infantilization of women is particularly pronounced in parts of SL.

PS. If you want to see this last dynamic at work very visibly, try visiting TikTok for a bit.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra

[EliseAnne85]

32 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I highly doubt this in most cases.  Just my opinion.  It all seemed to start when the whole SL DD/bg nonsense became the IN thing to do.  

I believe you are right with the Daddy Dom, Baby Girl "in thing". 

However, it's cool by me if you look 18+ which I know there is a little give and take there as 18 can look younger, but when one looks 5, they look 5.

And, this is creating a splinter in our community.  I separate from those whose body looks 25 and their face looks 5.  

Edited December 8, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I agree with Scylla in that it is difficult to age a female avatar.  I have a few add-ons, but wrinkles are awful.  They just make a face look look angry.  I use hairstyles to have a more mature look.  No pigtails, ribbons, or plastic barrettes. I dress fairly conservatively out in public.  There are ways to appear more mature, but it is a struggle at times.

[Nick0678]

54 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

It's actually no surpsise that the trend for hyper-curvy bodies has taken over. There's no way anyone would believe these avatars weren't children, if they used Maitreya bodies.

Yes . Supposed to be realistic human but no it isn't.

[EliseAnne85]

1 minute ago, Nick0678 said:

Yes . Supposed to be realistic human but no it isn't.

No comment on the avi because I am not going to discuss specific avatars others have individually made.  

I just wanted to say that the cartoonish big body was also an evolution of a type of furry, I believe.   That's where the exaggerated shape - super curvy, even dollish or cartoonish shape - comes from, but it was a furry shape originally.  I think other's thought it cute and thought they'd use it on a female.  But, really, it is going in the direction of about no older than a 12-year-old's head and face but mostly I see way younger, about 5 in the what other's are buying now.  

What to say to Gopi about the age of SL avatars?  Well, it goes all over the place.  

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

27 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I just wanted to say that the cartoonish big body was also an evolution of a type of furry, I believe.

The fashion for extremely "curvy" women with large posteriors has a pretty old history, going back to at least the late 18th century in the West; its most recent manifestations are celebrities and artists such as Nicki Minaj and Kim Kardashian, of course. The discourse surrounding this off-and-on trend is highly racialized -- Sara Baartman, a South African (probably) woman who was "displayed" in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, is the earliest well known example, but think also of Josephine Baker, whose body type defied an age that was very much into "boyishly slim" women.

There's an excellent podcast on CBC, featuring an interview with a woman who has just published a book on the subject of the history of "butts." It's really informative, entertaining, and manageably short (about 20 mins.). I have her book on order . . .

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2126856771694

[Janet Voxel]

I’ve seen quite a few aged female skins. Some of them go with the hyper-sexualized “nip tuck” look, lip fillers etc subset. But I know Poema makes aged female skins that look pretty good. It’s a little too old for me, but they look like 50-60 year old age range.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Janet Voxel
not Leronso

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I think most guys seem older than most gals. Not sure why (why that is, or why I think that). 

Likely tied to why more women in RL try to appear young -- dying our grey hair, doing botox to remove age lines, plastic surgery (if affordable) to appear younger.  Whereas most men allow the aging to show more.  Also likely tied to our general society view that younger women are more desirable.

[EliseAnne85]

10 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

The fashion for extremely "curvy" women with large posteriors has a pretty old history,

Yes, yes it does.  Even the courtesans' hourglass, shall I say, was portrayed extremely exaggerated in drawings, although corsets were used for centuries to get that hourglass figure.

I was thinking that perhaps it was Betty Boop who started the hoopla with the exaggerated hourglass figure, but it does go way back before Betty Boop.  I just saw something on Twitter yesterday, which you just reminded me about, about Courtesan's and they were drawings like a cartoon hourglass figure discussing stupid stuff, don't need to really go into detail as I left the topic quickly; wasn't interested in gossip.  Betty Boop may have just made it popular.  

Cartoon's are okay.  Dinkies are a type of cartoon avi.  It's just that the faces, honestly, do not need to be that young.   I'd like to be young again too, but age of consent or about 20 is good for me if I want to be younger in SL.

I agree that the mature woman or man can be a bit difficult to re-create on an avi as you spoke about above.

As far as men aging better than women in rl, men can grow a mustache and beard and cover up half their face of the wrinkles and sagging skin.  Sure older women can get a few unwanted "hairs" as we age, but we cannot cover up sagging skin and wrinkles the way an older man can.  

[Lewis Luminos]

This is where someone comes in and posts the "How old do you look" AI thing... https://howolddoyoulook.com/

It thinks I'm 27 but it's only trying to flatter me.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

I probably failed to actually answer the "average age" question - hoo-mon avatars:

Males: 27-52

Fe-males:  18-33

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Lewis Luminos said:

This is where someone comes in and posts the "How old do you look" AI thing... https://howolddoyoulook.com/

It thinks I'm 27 but it's only trying to flatter me.

 

I used to think that "beard means OLD".

Then I thought that "bald means OLD".

Now I know, hair or lack of hair doesn't mean much.

 

[EliseAnne85]

28 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

This is where someone comes in and posts the "How old do you look" AI thing... https://howolddoyoulook.com/

It thinks I'm 27 but it's only trying to flatter me.

 

Your avi could look close to 27 because reminds me a bit of Jim Morrison at that age.