jedbeetle

Rhonda Huntress wrote: Well ... one time, I was a cup of Starbucks skinny black and white mocha with half pumps. Yet everybody treated me like I was a cup of coffee. It was so embarrassing. The biggest reaction you will find is between people who live in SL and those newbies that day trip for research. Hah! Yeah, I totally expected the latter to be true, which is why I haven't gone logging in trying to ask people about identity. I have found some intersting stories asking around forums and such, though. I'm really interested in identity positive stories and people who were enabled or transformed by playing online games in various ways - like a guy in WoW who didn't receive much parenting irl and was basically raised by his clan. Multiple people who leveraged an MMO to present alternate genders/sexualities when doing that in their community would not have been accepted, and going on to embrace their identity more fully, stuff like that. I think I didn't phrase my question very well here. In the end, I think we're well aware of the negative things games and virtual environments might bring out, but there isn't as much accounting for all the good that comes out of them. And little stories like the ones I mentioned happen far more often than they are brought to light. I know some of my own identity development and exploration occured online, especially in Lambda MOO and City of Heroes, which is what caused me to go looking for these stories in the first place. I figure Second Life would be RIFE with people body jumping, and riffing on various identities, human and otherwise.

Well, subjective is perfectly OK with me! I will try and delve in a little bit myself, but I assume that regular users have much more experience and reflection than I could possibly accumulate in a week!

haha, Yeah they were pretty bad. I just found it interesting, as a outside observer thinking about this stuff, how different races were represented in each category. I did assume that people dropped these avatars pretty quick.

Warm greetings, Second Life citizens! I am a graduate student in education, and I've played my fair share of online games and in online universes (Mostly Lambda MOO and City of Heroes, a while back, to be honest). In taking apart my own identity and others' experience of it, I had some interesting things to reflect regarding my online experiences, especially role-playing as identities different from my own (as a black character, as a gay character, as a female character, as a black gay female alien...you get the idea) I've decided to do a presentation based on my own experience and the experience of others in online environments. I'm looking for stories and screenshots from anyone willing to share their own experience of identy (race, religion, gender, sexuality), transformation, celebration, prejudice, oppression, what have you. Second Life seems like it could be a place rife with this sort of experience! I've only logged into the world a couple times, and it seemed interesting, but I was honestly a little lost. I just started rolling a character again, and I couldn't help but notice that the only appreciably black avatars were in the vampire category. No judgment! It's just an observation, and I wonder if it hasn't been a topic of conversation already. So, anyways, do please share any stories you might have, or links to relevant fan fiction or articles or blogs that might address these issues! I'm going to thumb through some of what's out there, but I'm sure there are people who have a much better bead on the content than I do. Also, if you prefer to e-mail me, I'm at jedbeetle@gmail.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous to any degree (no screenname mention or whatever), I will totally respect that when sharing your story, of course. Thanks for your time! Hope to hear from any number of you soon.