Ask a Child Avatar

[NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard]

20 hours ago, brodiac90 said:

Similarly, I just want to thank everyone who has asked questions and all the kid avatars who have contributed. 

You're welcome, I am glad I could do what I could to answer any questions. 

[brodiac90]

@Love Zhaoying If you feel comfortable I think it would be cool if you started a thread too. Obviously only if you feel it is right for you.

Some questions from me to the other child avatars in this thread: @Madi Melodious @Lilbap @NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard @Sadvhi

1. Who is your favourite person or persons in SL and why? 

2. What are your top 3 best experiences in SL? 

3. What do you think child avatars could do to improve relations between other groups and communities? 

4. What do you think adult avatars and other groups could do to improve relations with child avatars?

5. The Belli Hamsters or Linden Bears? You can only pick 1 🤣

I will answer these questions too but I think I will let others respond first. 

To the adults who have responded. 

Have you learned anything? If so, what? 

Do you have any other questions? Please don't worry about offending me. 

@Love Zhaoying @Scylla Rhiadra @Persephone Emerald @InnerCity Elf@Ayashe Ninetails@Ingrid Ingersoll @Alwin Alcott @Cinnamon Mistwood @Aethelwine @Bree Giffen

Sorry if I missed anyone! 

Edited May 28 by brodiac90

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

@Love Zhaoying If you feel comfortable I think it would be cool if you started a thread too. Obviously only if you feel it is right for you.

What kind of thread are you suggesting I start? 🙂

A similar thread but asking questions since I ask more questions than most other people? 

(I've TRIED to stay on-topic in your thread!) 

FYI, most of my threads don't get traction!

Edited May 28 by Love Zhaoying

[brodiac90]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What kind of thread are you suggesting I start? 🙂

A similar thread but asking questions since I ask more questions than most other people? 

(I've TRIED to stay on-topic in your thread!) 

FYI, most of my threads don't get traction!

Well how do you identify? 

I would certainly ask questions. 

I appreciate your contributions! 

Edited May 28 by brodiac90

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

To the adults who have responded. 

Have you learned anything? If so, what? 

While the "sample size" is very small - there were very few child avatars participating in this thread so far, I learned that apparently it's NOT common for child avatars to "stay in character" all the time (see my specific questions).  If it were more common, I would have expected at least a couple answers with:

- 1 or more child avatar users saying "yes", they are in character all the time (except for specific OOC situations)

- 1 or more child avatar users saying "no", they are NOT in character all the time - but they DO know other child avatar users who ARE almost always in character.

So, my expectations were flipped by this!

[NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard]

1 hour ago, brodiac90 said:

@Love Zhaoying If you feel comfortable I think it would be cool if you started a thread too. Obviously only if you feel it is right for you.

Some questions from me to the other child avatars in this thread: @Madi Melodious @Lilbap @NicholasTheHufflepuffWizard @Sadvhi

1. Who is your favourite person or persons in SL and why? 

2. What are your top 3 best experiences in SL? 

3. What do you think child avatars could do to improve relations between other groups and communities? 

4. What do you think adult avatars and other groups could do to improve relations with child avatars?

5. The Belli Hamsters or Linden Bears? You can only pick 1 🤣

I will answer these questions too but I think I will let others respond first. 

To the adults who have responded. 

Have you learned anything? If so, what? 

Do you have any other questions? Please don't worry about offending me. 

@Love Zhaoying @Scylla Rhiadra @Persephone Emerald @InnerCity Elf@Ayashe Ninetails@Ingrid Ingersoll @Alwin Alcott @Cinnamon Mistwood @Aethelwine @Bree Giffen

Sorry if I missed anyone! 

I'm not sure how to answer this question in particular, but I do have a lot of good friends in Second Life. I'd say my top 3 best experiences in Second Life would for Fantasy Faire, Sci-Fi Con, and the Second Life Birthday event, especially with other holiday events. 

For child avatars to improve relations between other groups and communities, they need to make sure to communicate clearly and with good formality, to show that we aren't bad. Sure we may have bad eggs that occasionally show themselves, but so do other communities as well. Perhaps even show examples of the Kid Communities that we have, and how nice they can be. 

Adult avatars and other groups could pretty much do the same above, and perhaps in a way show that unnecessary hatred against those with Child Avatars is unacceptable, and that we should all treat each other with respect. No matter what avatar we are in the virtual realm. No one should be judged unfairly because of their avatar. We aren't robots without emotions, we are all humans behind the computer screen. We aren't infallible. Many of us have imperfections that make us who we are, but we aren't all bad people. 

Fear leads to dark places, and that usually leads to paranoia and uncertainty amongst many. It's unfortunate that some people think its okay to hate on others without thinking about the consequences that follow. Those who cause problems to others, especially to those who don't deserve it, will end up digging themselves a hole they may not be able to escape from. 

For the last one, I think I'll go for the Linden Bears

[InnerCity Elf]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I learned that apparently it's NOT common for child avatars to "stay in character" all the time

Yes, me, too, it was the perhaps most interesting thing for me so far, but all replies, and questions have been interesting. 

As for specific questions, maybe, how would you SL children like to be "approached" if we crossed paths? From my impression through reading the forums, there seem to be many people who don't like or are uncomfortable with SL kids, so when I stumble over one (not literally, though, at least, I'll do my best not to!), and it doesn't come across as a "creepy child" (I've seen a few) I'd like to exchange a few words, maybe it could brighten their day. When I see animal avatars (I'm in one myself sometimes), if I make contact, I tend to post in local chat, "by face value", let's say, it's a cat, I'll talk to them, like I would, when coming aross a cat in real life (and no animal avi's owner got cross with me over it so far). But children are a bit "scary", I'm not sure if to talk to them in a roleplay kind of way, or not, and how to start (typically, if you'd see a kid alone "out there", in a shop, or so, you'd observe, and if seems to not have a caretaker nearby, would go, "hello, are you alone, where's your mom" or something, to find out if they're lost and help), but in SL, if everyone approached them like that, would probably be "realistic" but annoying/boring? And don't want to seem creepy, either, of course, or make them worry that I'm runing around desperately trying to find a kid to adopt, I'd just want to interact a little. 

So, would you appreciate that, at all, and if so, how? Like roleplay, adressing you as a child of the age you're presenting as/I'm guessing, in local chat, or rather adress you, the adult player, in pm,...? 

NB: My main SL activity is roleplay, and I've both roleplayed a child and with children characters, on specific roleplay sims where child characters were allowed, that's not an issue, of course, I'll just approach their character however mine would. But I'm not sure how to "interact" "out in the wild", i.e. in the "not-organised roleplaying parts" of SL, I guess. 

This question is closely linked to what Love said and I quoted above, maybe. If not always "in character", perhaps not approach as if they were in character, i.e., as a child? But how do I know they are out of/in character, if some always are in, and others not... 🤔

 

Edited May 28 by InnerCity Elf

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, brodiac90 said:

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What kind of thread are you suggesting I start? 🙂

A similar thread but asking questions since I ask more questions than most other people? 

(I've TRIED to stay on-topic in your thread!) 

FYI, most of my threads don't get traction!

Well how do you identify? 

I would certainly ask questions. 

I appreciate your contributions! 

 

I appreciate that, but "personal" threads tend to bore people to tears and not get much participation.

There are a few "official" threads that dive into things such as, "Who are you? We want to know!". Also, people do post personal threads when going through a crisis (and/or upon returning following a crisis).  

It's just not all about "me, me, me"! 🙂

Maybe one day again, but I do tend to post personal info here and there, to the point a lot of it would be repeats and "very" personal.

 

[brodiac90]

4 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

Yes, me, too, it was the perhaps most interesting thing for me so far, but all replies, and questions have been interesting. 

As for specific questions, maybe, how would you SL children like to be "approached" if we crossed paths? From my impression through reading the forums, there seem to be many people who don't like or are uncomfortable with SL kids, so when I stumble over one (not literally, though, at least, I'll do my best not to!), and it doesn't come across as a "creepy child" (I've seen a few) I'd like to exchange a few words, maybe it could brighten their day. When I see animal avatars (I'm in one myself sometimes), if I make contact, I tend to post in local chat, "by face value", let's say, it's a cat, I'll talk to them, like I would, when coming aross a cat in real life (and no animal avi's owner got cross with me over it so far). But children are a bit "scary", I'm not sure if to talk to them in a roleplay kind of way, and what (typically, if you'd see a kid alone "out there", in a shop, or so, you'd observe, and if seems to not have a caretaker nearby, would go, "hello, are you alone, where's your mom" or something, to find out if they're lost and help, but in SL, if everyone approached them like that, would probably be annoying/boring? And don't want to seem creepy, either, of course, or make them worry that I'm runing around desperately trying yo find a kid to adopt, I'd just want to interact a little. 

So, would you appreciate that, at all, and if so, how? Like roleplay, adressing you as a child of the age I'm guessing, in local chat, or rather adress you, the adult player, in pm,...? 

 

 

Not all child avatars have parents, fewer have parents that engage with them, and even those who do have attentive parents can't expect their parents to be around all the time like you would in RL. So if you meet a child avatar in world just going about their business and ask them where their parents are, they might take offence to that or see it as you trying to control them / where they can be. It's totally different if you're on a roleplay sim though.

For example, I went and visited St Lewes RP sim yesterday by myself because my SL mom was afk. While I was there one of the teacher's asked me where my parents were. A perfectly acceptable question to ask given the situation. My reply was along the lines of. "They're there," points to park (NPCs). Which was totally fine. I imagine if I was alone as a 5 year old the teacher might have started trying to find my grownups or called the police etc. However, that was a very clearly defined RP scene. 

In general, I'd say just treat them like any other out of character person (minus the obviously adult stuff) unless they want to RP the situation a certain way, and even then, as I said to @Scylla Rhiadra, if you're not comfortable RPing then you don't need to. Basically we want to be treated as normally as possible and not hated upon. And if how you treat them differs publically to private, then yes, private messages that are out of character would be acceptable, although I would suggest you avoid all adult topics even in private. 

 

 

 

[Sadvhi]

My favorite people in SL are Bit McMillan, Kilolo Jenkins, and Streex Foxtrot because they are caring, kind-hearted and and go above and beyond when it comes to helping others.

Some of my most cherished moments in Second Life have been celebrating holidays with my family, exploring with my little sister, and doing fun outdoor activities with my family. But the worst experiences I've had in SL also took place within a family dynamic, so most of my time has been spent engaged in solitary pursuits.

Being kind and making a concerted effort to see things from other perspectives would help to alleviate tensions between chlid avatars and other groups/communities, but there are some people who simply don't like child avatars and that's their prerogative.

5 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

As for specific questions, maybe, how would you SL children like to be "approached" if we crossed paths? 

It's nice to be perceived as the age we are presenting via our appearance because it maintains a sense of immersion and realism, but I would never expect anyone to treat me as a child unless I was visiting a family roleplay community which was specifically geared for that. I wouldn't engage at all with adults outside of family rp/kid friendly events.

[Persephone Emerald]

@brodiac90

My primary reason for asking questions on this thread was to help open up a dialog between those who play child avatars and others on this forum. I think this has been a great thread for helping people understand those who play child avatars and to lower the "creepy" or distrustful  feeling many feel toward them. (I think this kind of distrust is felt toward people who seem different in RL too, and the way to overcome it is to get to know them better.)

I learned how those who chose to answer feel about playing a child avatar. The sample size was too small to understand all the motivations people have for playing a child in SL. It was also self-selected, which creates a bias. It adds positively toward my own experiences with child avatars in SL though. In SL most of my experience has been with tenants who played children (only 2) and with a SL boyfriend who created a child avatar in order to interact better with a friend of his who was one of our tenants.

I think my SL boyfriend's motivations were primarily manipulative, in order to get the other person to trust him more and give him money. He was annoying as a child avatar. One of the tenants I've dealt with as a child avatar seemed sketchy to me. I always wondered if there was something inappropriate going on with them, but I never saw evidence of this. The other one (my boyfriend's friend) just seemed annoying, and I distrusted them primarily because of their association with him (who by that time I also disliked).

All the people on this forum who play child avatars seem very nice by contrast, and I've been glad to hear their views and feelings.

@InnerCity Elf 

Good questions. I'm a little uncomfortable talking with child avatars inworld too. The closest equivalence to how I feel toward them is in talking with someone who is actively playing a BDSM slave to someone else who is there. In both situations I feel as if I should address the parent or Master/Mistress, while I mostly ignore the child or slave. In the BDSM situation it might be considered rude in RL to address the slave directly. In the parent-child situation in SL, I'd expect the parent to speak with me more directly about rental issues we're trying to resolve, rather than making me roleplay to support the child avatar's fantasy play.

Edited May 28 by Persephone Emerald
spelling correction

[Kathlen Onyx]

I am wondering why child avatars act like children when asking for support or help in a group chat?  I've seen some really obnoxious behavior in various group chats and the excuse is always "but I'm a kiddddd"  This is really the only thing that bothers me about child avatars.  If you are having a RL issue with a product or item then I really think you should present as an adult in those situations.

I think being a part of Beyou kind of gave me my first look at child avatars.  I really don't mind and if they are around I will engage in treating them like the age they represent.  I've never come across any child avatar that had sketchy behavior or was doing anything out of the ordinary.  It is fun sometimes to engage with them in RP,  in a fun way.  I've never seen a child avatar that demanded this though.  

Edited May 28 by Kathlen Onyx

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Kathlen Onyx said:

I am wondering why child avatars act like children when asking for support or help in a group chat?  I've seen some really obnoxious behavior in various group chats and the excuse is always "but I'm a kiddddd"  This is really the only thing that bothers me about child avatars. 

Maybe sometime they are trying to get a "lol"? 

We are fortunate that none of those participating in this thread are the annoying "kids" type. Otherwise, it's hard to have a discussion.

Imagined discussion similar to this one, but with a kid:

Us: * ask question *

Them: lulwhut? I dunno, I'm just a kid!

 

[brodiac90]

9 minutes ago, Kathlen Onyx said:

I am wondering why child avatars act like children when asking for support or help in a group chat?  I've seen some really obnoxious behavior in various group chats and the excuse is always "but I'm a kiddddd"  This is really the only thing that bothers me about child avatars.  If you are having a RL issue with a product or item then I really think you should present as an adult in those situations.

There are lots of child avatars that hate this sort of behaviour too. I really dislike it as well but I tend to keep that opinion to myself as much as possible as I really don't like to judge. I can just just about tolerate baby talk if it's in short enough doses. It really doesn't help people who use translators too or people who may speak English but not fluently enough to understand the child is speaking phonetically. 

Also, real children don't actually speak like that. English speaking children tend to have problems with irregular verbs and will say things like "We swimmed at the beach," rather than. "We swam at the beach," because typically in English you add the suffix ed to the root word to make it past tense, which obviously isn't the case with irregular verbs. Similarly, sentence structure tends to be less complex and the vocabularly used is usually rather simple, but it's not. "Cans yews helps mes wid dis pwease?" 

Shudders. 

 

Edited May 28 by brodiac90

[Sadvhi]

Maybe they are method actors 🤣

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

Similarly, sentence structure tends to be less complex and the vocabularly used is usually rather simple, but it's not. "Cans yews helps mes wid dis pwease?" 

Shudders. 

Kitteh speak!

Sometimes animal avatars speak with childish words / language.

[Lilbap]

2 hours ago, brodiac90 said:

1. Who is your favourite person or persons in SL and why? 

2. What are your top 3 best experiences in SL? 

3. What do you think child avatars could do to improve relations between other groups and communities? 

4. What do you think adult avatars and other groups could do to improve relations with child avatars?

5. The Belli Hamsters or Linden Bears? You can only pick 1 

1. I try not to play favourites, there's so many meaningful people in my lives My sister Jenny and my friend Bill live with me so I will mention them. My sister Jenny, words can't describe it. She won't allow me to be anything but the best person I can be. She helps me rember RL things because I have a bad memory. I have PTSD, so sometimes I struggle with my anger, and Jenny gently chides me enough to make me realize I am being silly. She's unfailingly supportive. Bill Flecher, I know in my bones he will always be there, with either a warm hug when I desperately need one or an insightful conversation. Again, all my friends are special to me, but I felt the question kind of needed an answer. Sorry if I ramble a bit.

2. I was standing in a coffee shop talking to my friends when someone teleported in and tried to turn the crowd against me. "What is this a kindergarden now?" Even tossed the ***** rules at me. Everyone in the place, not just my friends basically ran them off. I've never felt so loved. I have trouble picking two other ones as I have had a lot of great experiences, and again I feel I am rambling and don't want to spam the post.

3. Maybe the ones that baby babble tone that down, learn from real children how they speak and inteact that way. I have trouble going to G rated and child frendly sims because that "style" drives me up the wall. I'm not one to yuck someone's yum and if your social circle loves you how you want to represent yourself its great. However, that's one thing I told a lot in private, I don't feel "cringy" to adults because I speak to them on a somewhat adult level.

4. Stop treating us like a disease, sex offenders, or some other unsavoury sort to avoid. I like to think I am a pretty nice person, and I have a seething hatred of child molestors. Get to know us as individuals, like we get to know you, as an individual that has every right to live their second life how they feel happy.

5. I don't have an opinion on either. I don't collect them.

[brodiac90]

4 minutes ago, Lilbap said:

1. I try not to play favourites, there's so many meaningful people in my lives My sister Jenny and my friend Bill live with me so I will mention them. My sister Jenny, words can't describe it. She won't allow me to be anything but the best person I can be. She helps me rember RL things because I have a bad memory. I have PTSD, so sometimes I struggle with my anger, and Jenny gently chides me enough to make me realize I am being silly. She's unfailingly supportive. Bill Flecher, I know in my bones he will always be there, with either a warm hug when I desperately need one or an insightful conversation. Again, all my friends are special to me, but I felt the question kind of needed an answer. Sorry if I ramble a bit.

2. I was standing in a coffee shop talking to my friends when someone teleported in and tried to turn the crowd against me. "What is this a kindergarden now?" Even tossed the ***** rules at me. Everyone in the place, not just my friends basically ran them off. I've never felt so loved. I have trouble picking two other ones as I have had a lot of great experiences, and again I feel I am rambling and don't want to spam the post.

3. Maybe the ones that baby babble tone that down, learn from real children how they speak and inteact that way. I have trouble going to G rated and child frendly sims because that "style" drives me up the wall. I'm not one to yuck someone's yum and if your social circle loves you how you want to represent yourself its great. However, that's one thing I told a lot in private, I don't feel "cringy" to adults because I speak to them on a somewhat adult level.

4. Stop treating us like a disease, sex offenders, or some other unsavoury sort to avoid. I like to think I am a pretty nice person, and I have a seething hatred of child molestors. Get to know us as individuals, like we get to know you, as an individual that has every right to live their second life how they feel happy.

5. I don't have an opinion on either. I don't collect them.

I agree with a lot of what you said. 

On a less serious note, you can't collect the Belli Hammies, they're real people! 😅

 

[Lilbap]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

While the "sample size" is very small - there were very few child avatars participating in this thread so far, I learned that apparently it's NOT common for child avatars to "stay in character" all the time (see my specific questions).  If it were more common, I would have expected at least a couple answers with:

- 1 or more child avatar users saying "yes", they are in character all the time (except for specific OOC situations)

- 1 or more child avatar users saying "no", they are NOT in character all the time - but they DO know other child avatar users who ARE almost always in character.

So, my expectations were flipped by this!

My character is a 113 year old vampire that was changed when they were a kid. So when I am In Character I tend to be a more cynical and aggressive character. Most of the time I'm just living my best life and relaxing my tight control I have over myself. I'm more than happy to geek out about movies, video games, books and such. I guess the best way is to look at the location, if I'm on a roleplay sim I'm RPing, if not I'm just me.

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, Sadvhi said:

Maybe they are method actors 🤣

Master Thespians!

[Lilbap]

3 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

On a less serious note, you can't collect the Belli Hammies, they're real people! 

You lack conviction.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Lilbap said:

You lack conviction.

Do you drain and taxidermy them, or just let them dry naturally for perpetual display?

[Lilbap]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Do you drain and taxidermy them, or just let them dry naturally for perpetual display?

Ew! I would throw them fruits and veggies to keep them close. Its got to be like a combination of a hamsters nibble and a hippo cracking watermalons in their mouths! Would be fun and horrific to watch.

 

 

I guess like me.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Lilbap said:

Ew! I would throw them fruits and veggies to keep them close. Its got to be like a combination of a hamsters nibble and a hippo cracking watermalons in their mouths! Would be fun and horrific to watch.

 

 

I guess like me.

Since this is "AMA for Child Avatars", and you're a child avatar vampire, wouldn't you consider "turning" them?

[Lilbap]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Since this is "AMA for Child Avatars", and you're a child avatar vampire, wouldn't you consider "turning" them?

You're making this reeeeeaaaally hard for someone with impulse control issues to stay on topic!

I could go on forever on playing a vampire kid.