Sunday, April 6, 2008

Race and Gender in Second Life

Participation Assignment

I recently changed my race and gender in 2L.  When I created an account in 2L I automatically chose to be a women.  I don't know why I did this.  I also chose to make it look some what like myself (I was limited because I don't know how to use the appearance function on 2L).  I had never even thought about my automatic choice until I was asked to change it.  I thought about how I could have been anything I wanted to and I tried to replicate myself.
I did not notice much of a difference in the way that I was treated. Other people mostly ignored me (a fury did hit on me though).  I would follow people and put out a general message and no one said anything to me.  I tried going to crowed and popular places (a mall, a dance party, and a free sex place) but this did not make much of a difference.  When my avatar was a women I think that I was more approachable.  People would come up to me and say hi or ask me questions.  
At first, I did not notice that changing into a male was a matter of pressing a button in the appearance box.  I had originally tried to change my original avatar to a man manually (I looked transsexual and a little scary.  This may be part of the reason I was ignored at first.  I finally found the button and made a more normal looking man).  As a man I made myself very muscular (the preset body was to skinny and weak looking).  I made the tone of my skin much darker than it had been before.  My other features were preset and stored in my library.
After this experience, I will definitely make my avatar a women again (and try to make it resemble myself).  I feel more comfortable as a women.  I think that it is more fun as a women because it is more fun dressing them and trying to make it resemble yourself.

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