While I understand the concerns of the people involved in this movement, to combat problems in the atomic world of unhealthy thinness and of prejudice against people who aren't thin, I think their embrace of an aesthetic of "realistic" avatar shape is misguided at the very best.
Bear with me here: I'm going to bring some serious transhumanist smackdown. I usually reject that label, mostly because I've met too many transhumanists who haven't worked their way up to human yet. But transhumanism is exactly what's behind this issue, and you all need some tough lovin' here. So hang on tight: this won't take long, it's for your own good, and it hurts me more than it does you, really...
Why does any technology exist? To do things that can't be done better with other tools. That's true of everything from the screwdriver to the internet. So, what about the technology of Second Life? Why use it? Why come to SL?
To create things, to do things, that can't be done better elsewhere.
The first thing we create in the digital world is our selves. If we're replicating the selves we bring from the atomic world, we're missing the reason to use the technology of SL. Unless you really feel your physical form is the best possible representation of your self, you should be using SL's tools to create an avatar that's better.
Now, "better" is going to vary depending on your sense of aesthetics and your overall values. Better for some means boobalicious or uber-buff. For some it means stronger, or leaner, or a different size, color, gender, species. I'm not going to fault your aesthetic here, or criticize your ideal, as long as your digital self does reflect that ideal image that you have. I'm not arguing against an aesthetic of shapeliness, far from it!
(points to her short, shapely partner, for example)No, the only bone I have to pick with you is if you're rejecting the ideal entirely for the sad comfort of the "real."
Look at you, there in your atomic world. No, I mean it. Stop and look.
Is that your ideal? Is that the best you can do?
Chances are good you eat too much and exercise too little. You poison yourself with pollutants in your air, water and food. Your skin has been damaged by the elements, aged by stress caused by your social systems - and more on that mess in a moment! If you smoke, well, you deserve the wrinkles, the raspy voice, the cough and wheeze.
That's just the stuff you're responsible for. Then there's all the stuff that isn't your fault: accident damage, aging (look me in the eye and tell me you really think that's a good idea, something worth keeping. No, I didn't think you could do it), gender dysphoria, genetic defects.
Your form, your atomic form, has been marked by all those things, some your responsibility and some that aren't. Each scar, each wrinkle, each unhealthful kilo on your ass marks a failure. Yours, your society's. They mark a failure to manifest what you really are, what you know yourself to be and to be capable of. That "realistic" form you're stuck with in the atomic is a map of your defeats, of your failures of will and of imagination.
That's what you want to exalt in a place where you can finally do better?
Sometimes I think there's a war on imagination, a real war being fought by those who hold power in the old, feudal, atomic order against those who'd return creative power to the people, who'd deliver us from artificial scarcity. This avatar shape thing could be a battle in that war, an ideological strike by the meme "the ideal is bad; the ideal punishes you for being inferior; don't strive for the ideal but glory in your shortcomings." It could be.
Or, it could be you just need Cousin Soph to swat you upside the head and go, "What, are you STOOPID? You can do better than that!"
Because, look. That's why Philip created the foundations of this world. That's why tens of thousands of people create new things here, why hundreds of thousands come to SL to work and play and love and live.
Because you atomic people know, in your calcium-deprived bones you know, that you can do better. You know that you've been stuck inside a system that might have been useful a century or three ago but right now just holds you back, dumbs you down, dwarfs you from a creator and a citizen into a consumer.You know you can do better!
So, do better. Do better. Create your digital selves as your ideal, whatever form that might take. And if you're still atomic people, if you don't come to call the digital your home and embrace digital citizenship (and we welcome you, all of you who do, in Extropia!), then you've got more work to do.
What do you need to do next? Look at that avatar you made. Look at that picture of health and strength and self-creation.
Then, start asking questions.
Ask: why can't I have this in the atomic world? Why can't I have health and youth and strength and beauty?
Why, with all the brains and talent and wealth in the atomic world - some four orders of magnitude more than in SL - aren't these things even easier in the atomic than the digital? Why are the systems that take your wealth spending it on things less valuable than health and longevity and beauty? Why do you listen to the memes and ideologies that try to convince you that you shouldn't have these things, that it's wrong to expect them, that you need to embrace and welcome and defend your personal and social failures to create health and youth and strength and beauty?
Ask those questions, and demand answers. Demand them of yourself: ask yourself where you've put your time and wealth and talent, and what you've gotten in return. Ask your rulers, your bosses, your politicians, that whole parasitic class that has gotten those things, paid for by your taxes and your entertainment dollars. Ask them why you don't have what they do, and demand answers.
Now, pick a world and change it. I'm here in the digital, trying to defend this space as a better way. Lots of good people are at work in the atomic, trying to give us heath and youth and strength and beauty. They're scientists, transhumanists, people fighting for the ideal against the surrender to the real. They're activists, idealists, trying to take back our creative power and our freedom, trying to build systems of equity, trying to make the atomic as good as the digital can be. Pick a place to stand and people to stand with, and get to work!
But, omfg, don't come asking for your failures to be exalted, for an aesthetic of poison and neglect and suffering to be enshrined as somehow noble! I know you; you can do better, in one world or another. So do better! Demand better!
OK, that's all for the tough love. You're all straightened out now, right?Me, I'm going to take my skinny chalk-white winged tattooed ass back to work. There's a lot to be done...
43 comments:
I do agree with your thoughts about not letting yourself be stuck with a certain idea of what's real and what's possible and pushing the limits of your imagination (sorry if that doesn't quite make sense, its been a long day).
For me, making my avatar more "realistic" was just an effort to look closely at the shape I had created, and see how bony and actually misshapen it really was. I have a slightly more curvy figure than my avatar, so I wanted to represent that. However I think my avatar's new figure is much much more beautiful than mine...
And to defend my powers of imagination... my alt is a neko with a zebra skin and I'm always pushing the limits of my imagination with her. :D
@Kedawen:
Thank you for taking my rant in the spirit it was intended!
I know you're talented and imaginative, and this was never aimed at you - and I found the technical feedback in the NWN comments really interesting, as I'm just starting to work with avatar shaping myself.
*slips a handful of baby carrots to your zebra-self*
I rarely consider a lot of blog posts inspiring, but I think this one fits. I agree with a lot of what you say Soph, and Gahum is how I would look if I could easily change my appearance as easily as I can move a few sliders around or change skins. He's trim and athletic. Muscled, but not too heavily muscled. He's got the face of a model. He wears beautiful, well fitting clothes. His skin is in good shape and his tattoos are perfect and complete. He is *my* ideal. One of the things I like about SL is that we don't have to have all of the physical flaws our RL selves have. Why would I want to look like I do in RL in SL? And for the record, I think that Gahum actually inspires me to improve myself (as soon as I can get laziness out of the way :)).
On the other hand, a friend of mine who keeps trying to get inworld WANTS to look like he does in RL.
I agree whole-heartedly that sending an avatar into Second Life presents an unprecedented opportunity for self-expression, and as such I should take the experience as seriously as my Divine Spirit of Play can allow for. As I've noted elsewhere, I do my best to have both my avatars be expressions of the true me, the one at the core, yet they're each in their way completely different from one-another and from the person you'd see (and likely walk on past) out there on the atomic street.
It doesn't make much sense to me to import all my "RL" caste-data into this new frontier; it's a LABORATORY for christ's sake, and we should be experimenting as widely and as vigorously as possible. Technologically, socially, spiritually, you name it: PUSH IT!!! See where the edges are--and aren't...
Plus, I think you & I share a general impatience with all those damned A/S/L'ers, who just don't seem to understand 'Um, no, I'm never gonna hook up with you IRL, so, no, you don't get to see RL picture, hear my RL voice, etc., and NO, that doesn't mean I've got something to HIDE' oh, and BTW: *choosing* to look like your 'RL self' ('idealized' a bit, of course, lol) in a world where you don't have to (i.e. your av wasn't actually born with that body, that skin, those features, *you put them there*), is no less of a conceit, no less of a mask than blue skin & feathers or grey leopard spots. Just sayin'
**BUT** (Here's where I swerve back onto topic, but also start to disagree, I'm afraid):
First, I don't, under any circumstance, labor under the delusion that either of my alternate configurations of self are *better* than my atomic-version. More appropriate for the generally surreal SL-context? Yes, absolutely. Welcome respite from the Rigors of Atomic Life, where despite the dominant presence of a certain 3-year-old, there's just never enough room for *play*? Again, no question.
But are my digital bodies better? Superior? I just don't think so. All those 'flaws' of the real, those things that represent 'failures' you speak of; those are in fact things I *miss* when I'm in SL. Our bodies contain all the lessons we've learned (some thru pain & suffering, yes), all the joys & pleasures we've exulted in, and ALL OUR BEST TOYS!! XD Seriously: I've got a pretty vivid imagination & all, but teledildonics & more general haptics are gonna hafta get WAAYYY more sophisticated & provide much more nuanced feedback before I'm EVER gonna trade proper RL nookie for 'em. Just sayin'
OH and don't get me started on these poor excuses for HANDS our avatars have...
And sure we can fly in SL, but I that can't even pretend to hold a candle to bombing down the Marin Headlands at 49mph(!!) on my bicycle. The wind in my face, the vibrations in the bike's frame and the gritty hiss of my tires on the road, the swooping, flowing dance of gravity & centrifugal force, the ADRENALINE... Havok 4 my ass, sorry.
(...must...stay...on...topic...>.<;;)
ok..this comment is threatening to overtake your original post is sheer wordcount, so I need to wrap it up, but one last thing occurred to me (that prolly should've occurred to me first, before I started this screed):
Every last one of us struggles at some level with identity issues in RL: There's gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, socionomic class, and of course, the body shape/size issues that started this whole topic. And in those struggles, what everyone's basiclly doing is fighting just to be accepted, for *who* we are, *as* we are. Can we really fault people for doing some of that struggling here in-world, where it's relatively safe, and when so much of RL's oppressive idiocy has been thoughtlessy coded into the SL viewer itself? (Seen the noob avs? Even the new ones are mostly white/euro-tan, and they're ALL pretty thin... and howcome gender's got to be a button, and not a slider?)
Anyway... since no-one's really stepped up & said it, not here, or Hamlet's or Iris' posts:
Y'all skinny bitches can kiss my ASS!! *REAL* women have HIPS, and real women have CURVES!! Big ones!
<3<3
Heehee, I'm applauding both you and Tru, Soph dear. What an entertaining subject!
I'm somewhere between you and Tru's perspectives, I think. I don't agree that my body here is necessarily better than my FL one (though there are improvements to be made that wouldn't have a negative impact, I would admit). On the whole, I am happy with my puppet out there. With that having been said, offer me the opportunity to have my digital puppet become an atomic form and I'd be beating a passionate path to your door, with only one hesitancy in mind. I'd never want my form to be permanent in my first life.
So far my looks there are permanent, and until we're offered Queen of Angels transforms that's not going to change. So be it. There are certain desires like taste, touch and 3D vision that make having this body very worthwhile. I would be fearful of change, though, and would not want it unless there were a way to flip the change back. If that's something as scientifically fictional as changing through a six-hour cycle of hibernation, that's fair enough. What surprises me is that with my second form I've already begun to realise some downsides as well as overwhelming positives.
I chose to be a petite (though at the time I thought it 'realistic height', sorry), busty, hourglass-shaped doll. It's always appeared to be a beautiful form to me, and it's for this reason that my shape has gone under only the most minor of changes since day one. I feel pretty, my puppeteer thinks me pretty, and so do you. That's a big positive, and is one that I imagine first life would afford if I looked like this. The negatives, however, come from having a bust which stretches some clothes designs. If I sit too far forward, my chest gets squished by my arms. I'd actually struggle to reach forwards. There's also the notion that if the rest of the atomic world continued to look as it did, I'd turn far too many heads on a daily basis. From an SL perspective, that's fine, but as for the idea of doing "better" in first life... perhaps I'd need yet another body. A compromise.
Wonderful discussion!
I think there are alot of strands to this "realistic AV" idea. I'll talk a little about the part of it that seems valid to me. It centers around exactly the bone that you, Soph, weren't picking: the aesthetic.
I strongly agree that there's nothing wrong with wanting to look better in SL (or even in FL); but there's a danger that lots of people will be using an unexamined and unhealthy notion of "better".
It's utterly wonderful when SL people take forms that are consciously designed expressions of aspects of their inner selves, however 'unrealistic' that is.
The thing that worries me is that people may be taking forms that are unthinkingly modeled after ideal FL forms, where those ideals are the result of accidentally-viral memes, pathological power-relationships, and pervasive advertising images.
That is, it's sort of a bummer that so many SL AVs seem to be unoriginal copies of what one might see on the cover of some glamour magazine, which represents (via image manipulation) a form that no FL human actually has, and that wouldn't be healthy if they did.
There's nothing objectively wonderful about this ideal, it causes considerable suffering in FL (people thinking they should look that way when in fact no one does), and it's not healthy in FL (there are for instance pretty good studies showing that the longest life expectancy is associated with being somewhat "overweight" by current standards).
Given the vast range of choices we have in the new world for ideal forms, it's too bad if lots and lots of people choose to import this particular one from FL without giving it some thought.
Which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with looking at that FL ideal, or some personal variant of it, and deciding that yeah, that's how one wants to be in SL. It's the looking that's important to me; I'd like every SL AV to be the result of conscious choice and design, not just a thoughtlessly imported FL ideal.
(And I suspect that very few of the people that are reading this are in the target audience of this worry. :) Not alot of thoughtlessly created AVs hereabouts...)
This is what I like about this blog, by the time I'm ready to post people have already said the things I want to say.
Dale, in particular, has nailed it. The "ideal body" is as often a product of atomic world brainwashing as it is of our inner desires, or rather the two are permanently entangled. There is *no one* ideal. Long life, healthy, beauty, fertility, strength - I doubt any one atomic world body can ever perfect all of these things, and indeed each person is going to make different choices as to what they would want to perfect anyway.
Still, SL vindicates itself by prompting us to ask the very question in the first place. Not, "If you could be anything you wanted to, what would it be?", but the more important follow-up..."Why?"
And, like so much else in SL we all just have to keep asking ourselves "why", and reflect our own answer in the light of what others are saying. There is no "right" answer, but there is always room for self-reflection.
love this discussion.. and I walk the fence.. I've made some of my alts more "rl me"..lets say..I don't play them much... Whereas, my elf self, I enjoy.. and I am always tweaking her to make her more "her" not me.. balancing and adjusting. Change at a whim, indulgence.. its part of SL for me
I had a mental block in the initial article, and locked myself into viewing an "improved" avatar as something similar to the Hollywood/People Magazine ideal that so many women torture themselves trying to achieve. I didn't want to see that same self abusive attitude brought into SL, and get caught up in trying to duplicate those women.
I completely overlooked the power of the imagination. Gossamer wings. Purple eyes. Blue dragons. Intricate tattoos on ivory skin. Lavender hair. All of that and more is possible in SL. And it allows us to express aspects of ourselves that are difficult or impossible to express in RL.
So, I'm actually all in favor of "improving" your avatar, if it is a creative change that brings you joy. Go for it!
Princess Ivory
Great post! Interesting thread. I think people (human and virtual) can take almost identical actions for very different reasons. So from where I sit, I can't really see anything inherently positive or negative in any particular choice of form just on its own merits.
So if someone chooses a particular appearance for a good purpose, and pays attention to whether being embodied in that form actually creates the positive result he or she seeks, then I'm all for it.
That said, there's no delusion like self-delusion. I oughta know. :)
In light of what Dale has said, I for one would like curvier, bustier and less-tanned women in our glamour and fashion magazines. That'll definitely grab much more of my attention, at least. ;)
@Vidal Tripsi:
Shorter! I want to see SHORTER avatars. I'm tired of 7 ft tall women. I'm only 5'4" in RL, and the best I could manage in SL was about 5'10".
Princess Ivory
Lots of good comments. I probably agree most with Botgirl. My perspective is a tad different from most of you, I think. I am still very, very new. I think most of you have been inworld awhile. You've forgotten that it takes time for some people to adjust to the freedom that is SL. My av reflects many things about me that are not real and many things that are.
I met a kitsune tonight and fell in love with the ears and tail. I WANT a tail. But when we went to the store, I was overwhelmed AND slightly put off by some of the shapes and the details. I suspect I'll get there, but it's going to take me just a bit longer to let go of my notions of "what is right" and go with "what is right for me".
GREAT POST!
Were I truly my av I couldn't handle all the stalkers ~wink~
Creating a personal projection of who we are, were, wish we were, wish people saw us as (have i forgot anything) is one of the amazing things about this world we get to play in.. "meeting" the person behind the avatar is SO MUCH FUN!
Can anyone please tell exactly what is a "realistic" shape for a blue faerie?
And are green faeries more or less curvy?
Gooddess forbid that I'm not realistic enough.
Well, myths tend to be long-lived. A lot more so than any technology. So, if you want to make you avatar "better", chances are you'll go for some sort of Greek god/goddess (also available in the Hollywood later releases. Let's face it: Hercules, Odysseus, Aphrodyte (but also Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Keanu Reeves in Matrix) are the stuff of myth, a lot more so than, say, a giant pink-striped eggplant with six wheels and tentacles. So I guess it's no wonder you do not see very many giant eggplants wandering around SL.
And then, I suppose there's a lot of people out there trying to make their avatar look more like their real selves. They do not necessarily lack imagination. They might be trying to tell us that they are quite at ease with their (surely less-than-perfect, whatever that might mean) atom selves. Or they might be using SL as a meeting place rather than an area for self expression. Or whatever.
What about "Realistic Avatar Shapes? Mmm, depends"?
Great Post! So much has already been said, but I'll add the following .02 cents...
My thinking is generally in tune with Botgirl's in this matter.
As far as female shapes are concerned, I prefer the 1950s/1960s well-proportioned bombshell-look over the current supermodel-look any day of the week.
Wow, what fantastic comments!
Truthseeker, great stuff! A lot of people here and on other blogs have picked up on that thread, of the digital and atomic worlds being very valuable for themselves, in their own way. I can understand that, and I think it's a good balance to my own perspective.
Dale - thank you. I didn't deal with the problems of importing bad body memes as much as I should. I agree with you, and it may be that acceptance of *not* meeting that ideal may be a necessary step towards freeing one's creativity and sense of self. Good stuff!
Argent and Botgirl: very good! Yes, *what* you do matters less than why - and along with you, I'd like to get people asking those whys...
Alberto: I like that "depends." Thanks for coming by, and for a great comment!
Princess: Where *are* all those 7 foot women? Send 'em my way! :P
Seriously, are smaller avs really a problem? I just did a 5'4" avatar for Catherine Asaro, and it didn't seem too hard...
Faerie: Woot! Thank you!
And thanks everybody - you did just what I hope to see here, taking my half-baked radicalism and adding depth and sophistication. You guys are fantastic!
@ Sophrosyne Stenvaag:
A short female avatar by default must also have a smaller head, or she will look weird. Prim hair almost always has to be edited. Total pain. And the overall body is generally smaller as well, meaning prim skirts are a nightmare. Not to mention looking like a dwarf around everyone else! But the biggest problem by far has to do with fitting prim hair and prim skirts to a smaller av. I can't just wear something "off the rack." I have to go spend an hour editing it first. No fun.
Princess Ivory
Great post Soph!
Yes, I "eat too much and exercise too little. You poison yourself with pollutants in your air, water and food. Your skin has been damaged by the elements, aged by stress caused by your social systems - and more on that mess in a moment! If you smoke, well, you deserve the wrinkles, the raspy voice, the cough and wheeze."
I do smoke (because I like it, as simple as that) and certainly I have the wrinkles, the raspy voice, the cough and wheeze. I do not _deserve_ these things though. What I deserve (what everyone deserves) is a chance at happiness at a discounted price.
One of my avatars is fat and out-of-space as his primary, the other is young, exotic and beautiful as his primary would wish to be. What I want from technology is the chance to choose my shape in my _main_ reality (which could well be a future hypermega VR where we can _live_ as uploads).
Can I have both, please? I want an avvie that reflects my Body By 3 Pregnancies shape that I'm perfectly OK with in first life, clothes that look sexy on an avvie with a belly, hips that look realistic when they are expanded, not cartoony. AND I want an avvie with pointy ears and wings and whatever else I can come up with.
Hi Soph,
I think you make some very interesting points, but isn't this in part an extension of the immersion v. augmentation debate?
The truth is that so many come to SL with varying perspectives and desires; isn't it hard to say that one is right? Those with an augmentationst perspective may be more prone to viewing virtual worlds through an atomic lens with an avatar that reflects that ideal. Why can't we change to debate to reflect a continuum of possibilities that should be respected by all. In other words, "can't we all just get along?"
@Giulio: I completely agree - we *should* be able to modify our atomic forms - and the social relations that shape them so!
@eleri - both is great! Giulio, who commented right above you, does that, and it's terrific. He's got one "realistic" alt and one "idealized" - and it's been fun watching him use and settle into both!
@Lanna - thank you for weighing in! Of course, we should accept all the possible forms. *But* - but, those choices of forms aren't made in a cultural vacuum, and they're both cause and effect of social and political forces.
I'm hoping to get people thinking about those forces, and what they really want, rather than "eating what's set before 'em," being citizens of the digital world rather than mere consumers of the atomic.
Thank you for pushing me to express that, and thanks again to all of you for a fantastic discussion!
The "cousin Soph" line struck a chord as we share the same name. And Stenvaags are not a common commodity in SL so I like to make contact with my virtual relatives when possible. HI COUSIN! (waves)
Regarding the thread, AMEN! My avatar is RL me cranked up to 11 (or 12, or maybe 13). The possibilities of SL are limited only by the imagination yet I see so many cookie cutter avatars running around. Like trying to build a better Barbie or Ken doll. And they have the nerve to come down on the imaginative folks who have blue skin or fairy wings or proportions that tie human genetics in knots. I say GO FOR IT! You've got the tools, enjoy your Second Life.
However: I am not for freedom ", but...". I am for freedom, ", period.". If someone wants to look as ugly and fat as in RL, or uglier and fatter than in RL, why not.
What I want is more options, to make by beautiful avatar even more beautiful and my ugly avatar even more ugly.
We will certainly be able to modify our atomic form, but that will be a stepping stone, I see escaping atomic reality as a final goal. Imagine ---living--- in whatever SL will become in, say, 40 years. Then Soph will be able to walk a meat avatar in atomic reality for a few hours a day and campaign for the right os obsolete atomic persons.
*waves at Susyn* Hey Cuz!! You're the second other Stenvaag I've met - and the second other S. Stenvaag! :D
I'd love to meet you sometime, to get a look at that "13"! Don't be a stranger!
@Giulio - I love that vision! I think you're *there,* looking to pull us forward to that time and those conditions. I'm here, trying to *push* us there.
I look around and see people, and memes, that are really profoundly opposed to that vision we share.
While some people create realistic avatars for good professional reasons, or out of comfort with their atomic appearance, or out of unfamiliarity with the possibilities, there are some who do so because they think that imagination and transcendence are *bad things,* that empowering people creatively is simply dangerous.
If we're going to keep growing, to get to the conditions you and I both want, we're going to have to push back against those people and their ideas.
I think this whole discussion has become a big pushback! The consensus across the blogosphere is more moderate than my position, but look - everybody's saying, however weird or normal your av, whatever choices you make, as long as they're thoughtful and healthy for you, they're fine.
That's a big push against conformity, regulation, and creative disempowerment, and a real step towards more creative identity exploration in the atomic world as well, I think...
Damn, I wish I'd been online this weekend to reply... wonder if anyone will see this?
Soph, you know I always love ya and part of the reason is that we're so different in many ways, including attitudes. :)
"you should be using SL's tools to create an avatar that's better." you say -- ah, but that's YOUR goal of what SL's tools are for! It's not "THE" de facto universal goal of how avatar tools should be used.
Phrases like that, about being "better", along with declaring those who don't do to be "exalting failures" (!!!) ... that's just /reinforcing/ the meatspace attitude right here in SL that there's something wrong with us if we don't match up to someone else's extreme aesthetic rule.
In RL we don't have as much choice about it as in SL, but why should we completely reject the lovely variety and differences of people in RL, writing it all off as "exalting failure?"
If (say) my disabled or minority relatives chose to build self-portrait avatars in SL, is that "exalting failure" or raising awareness? Would you seriously be OK with someone challenging that choice with statements like you made in your blog post?
Considering I personally have overheard people scolding a black avatar for the width of her nose, and people have asked me why I don't buy "a real shape" when in fact I look exactly like I want to, I think that's a good point.
IMO, handing attitude to someone who chooses to be what some might declare ugly or defective is just another way of marginalizing minorities in both virtual reality and RL.
It's really NOT all about people being too unimaginative or chicken to try something different. These are people who are willing to put up with the potential social ostracism of being even MORE of a minority in SL than they are in RL.
So, I have to /completely/ disagree with any attempt to diss people's willingness or desire to resemble less-than-idealized fantasy people on some level.
I suspect you're reacting this strongly because "realistic" avatars could be construed as a conservative-izing threat to your (and everyone's!) right to make fantasy/idealized/vastly different from RL avatars... a right which I would ALSO defend. But I think that's actually NOT the same topic.
Soph, you wrote: "...there are some who do so because they think that imagination and transcendence are *bad things,* that empowering people creatively is simply dangerous."
Maybe I'm just sheltered, but I'm not familiar with anyone out there saying such things, except very fundamentalist religious institutions.
Would you share some examples of specific individuals and organizations espousing the kind of thinking you mentioned.
@Botgirl: You've asked a very good question.
No, I'm not going to name names: I'm not going to reopen myself to the vicious personal abuse I've gotten in the past from some of the vocal proponents of this position.
I've never run into anti-experimentation attitudes from SL's religious communities: most all the religious activists I've met in SL have been delightful people doing good work.
I have found these attitudes in the business community. Not in employees of the major corporations active in SL, but from people looking to build atomic-world reputations from their SL activities.
I've also run into them in people in science, education and government in SL and other digital worlds - again, people afraid for their atomic reputations, fearing that association with exotic people here (like exotic people in the atomic, I imagine), jeopardizes their own legitimacy, community standing or self-image.
I've also read statements from Lindens in their professional capacity that *could* - not necessarily but could - be taken as hostile to identity creation and experimentation.
Given that LL seems to couple extreme public statements with lax or no actual action, I'm not inclined to make an issue of those past statements now.
I understand your concerns that I'm raising a straw man. I'll do a post soon that documents the case against digital personhood and identity exploration without sinking into namecalling and personal disputes, but for now, I'm going to leave the issue here.
@Jen: Whoa.
OK, first: I said up front that I'm *not* judging ideals. I'm not saying that one aesthetic value is better than another, that it's better to be white than black, thin than shapely. I don't say it, I don't think it, and this discussion hasn't in any way been about that.
I'm more than a little hurt and angry that you suggest that I think that people shouldn't have minority avatars because they don't match somebody's (mine? whose?) aesthetic values.
I don't think that's even a possible reading of what I said, or what anybody has said in this discussion, or what anyone else has accused someone they disagree with of saying or thinking. That's grossly inappropriate and unfair, and lowers the tone of a very good discussion across numerous blogs, commenters and viewpoints.
I do stand by my view, and I know it's an extreme one, that copying one's atomic form into SL is a failure of imagination and a failure to make use of the medium. Lots of people disagree with that, and that's okay. I *like* the general tolerance that Botgirl, Myg, Kate and so many others have shown.
What I *don't* like is the politics behind *some* people's choice of "realisitc" avatars. Not all, by any means! There are a lot of fine reasons for having a realistic avatar - and you know I adore you, and Giulio, and Kedawaen, and many other people who have them, and I'm totally fine with your choices.
Disability is a tricky one. I'd like to talk with someone disabled in the atomic who uses a disabled av in SL to find out why. I don't understand it, and it smacks of something I'm really not all right with, the importation of FL politics into SL.
Now, that's a pure immersion/augmentation thing. To me, that's like Americans on vacation in Europe proselytizing for their favorite Presidential candidates. It's vulgar and imperialistic.
To a lot of people, it's using another communications tool to say something important to them. There's no resolving that one; it's a fundamental difference.
But here's the thing: the culture, values and politics of digital worlds are still being shaped. They *could* be shaped into a copy of FL: regulated, legislated, limited, where users are supposed to consume the content handed them.
Or, they could be a place of creative freedom and empowerment.
Each choice each of us makes tips the balance a bit. You create beautiful, imaginative things and make them affordable to most everyone. That tips the balance. Somebody else builds a McMansion - that tips the balance. Somebody creates a faerie avatar - that tips the balance. Somebody else uses their FL photo in their profile - that tips the balance.
What I hope to do is twofold - to get people thinking about the cultural consequences of their choices, and to tip the balance in favor of digital worlds being something more - and yes, better - than a copy of the FL political, social and cultural system.
I don't expect most people to agree with me - but I do hope to get them talking, and over time to shift the center a bit towards the Digital side.
Ahh, sorry Soph, I am coming across strong here. This is a touchy subject for me as you can surely tell! Believe it or not, yeah, I /did/ read the OP before reacting like that.
There are only so many ways to edit and reedit this reply, so I'm just gonna post the whole durn longwinded-as-usual thing...
Yeah, I know you're not saying there's anything wrong with minority diversity and CERTAINLY not with racial diversity! I shouldn't have posted those two concepts together like that. I brought that up because I've already seen so much "you don't meet MY ideal" attitude dished out in SL in a much more careless manner than you present here. Anyway, poorly handled, sorry. Nobody who would actually act that way is likely to read or understand your blog anyway.
To try and be clear, I think I really _do_ understand that the main, excellent point of your post is that people should want/demand better quality of life (RL or SL), and I agree with you in that general sense.
But that's not what I'm reacting to... I can't agree with how you're tying that into some kind of judgement about avatar choices undermining that or reflecting the "sad comfort of the real."
People already get aesthetically judged inside of SL due to leaking-in standards of RL-social-politics, which I already know you object to. But then why should people be any more accepting of aesthetic (or other) judgements due to SL-social-politics?
I mean, how you can say you're not judging someone else's aesthetic sense, while simultaneously asking "STOOPID" people why they don't use SL to fix their "failures"? o_o That's definitely a harsh judgement of their priorities at the very least, isn't it?
Or is it that you're assuming their priorities based on how they look? That doesn't sound much like you to me either. So I am ze baffledness, you can see I'm casting around here...
And I'm still left wondering... how are you differentiating between your curvy/short/brownhaired/otherwise "realistic" friends and all those "STOOPID" people who are ruining SL?
I just don't see how someone who wants to represent some physical conformation more commmonly seen in RL than in SL is any _more_ political than someone else who's trying to discourage it... In fact I consider the latter to be even more of an aggressive political statement, because in this case it's about _other_ people's choices and not your own.
I mean, am I still totally misinterpreting you? ARE you saying there's something wrong with people choosing a "realistic" avatar? If so, is that bad only when it's political, or bad when it's getting too much RL into your SL aesthetically, or is it bad when it's using the charged term "realistic", or what?
I wouldn't be reacting like this if you were saying "So-called realistic avatars are not for *me* because they seem overly restrictive and unimaginative and make SL less exciting and idealized compared to what *I* want." But that's not how this sounds to me.
To me, the post is projecting a much broader attitude that SOME avatars (not your friends, of course, just some "STOOPID" people, the proverbial Them perhaps) are undermining your ideal of SL and/or that there's something very wrong with these people because they aren't changing the world by idealizing their looks...?
Regardless of how many "Why, some of my best friends are X, Y, or Z!" disclaimers are on either side of it, what still jumps out at me here is you saying at various points, quoted, "Is that the best you can do? A map of your defeats, of your failures of will and of imagination? What, are you STOOPID?"
Yes, it still makes me twitch more than a little, even when I read those pieces in context. I'm sure you mean to sound playfully disarming rather than smirkingly judgemental.
Perhaps I'm just oversensitive because you're using the same terminology and at least some of the attitude that I've heard far too many RL (and SL!) people dish out to those they think should change to meet their ideal.
The aforementioned jerks are trying to marginalize when THEY call people stupid or unimaginative or claim they're settling for what's comfortable... wheras you're trying to inspire people to be better when YOU call people stupid or unimaginative or claim they're settling for what's comfortable... But. Um.
Knowing you are so generally open-minded and welcoming of diversity, this is why I'm so startled in general by this. If I'm still way off base here, then I don't know what else to say. I'm just trying to explain how it's coming across to me, and why I'm reacting so strongly.
@Jen: OK, let's see what we can do here...
Let's start with, some of your interpretation of my original post is absolutely right. I think physical infirmities are bad things.
Giulio says, yes, I smoke because I like it - and I think I shouldn't have to pay for that with wrinkles, a scratchy voice and lung cancer.
Others say, yes, I like to eat - and I shouldn't have to pay for that with hardened arteries, heart disease, diabetes.
I absolutely, positively agree. I want to see the atomic world develop preventatives and cures for all the damage that bodies are prone to.
I think physical damage is bad, and should be prevented or cured.
So, when people import the signs of that damage into an environment that doesn't damage them - I can think of very few reasons why that would be a good and healthy thing.
Commenters have suggested some: pride in survival, a proprietary (business or just personal) interest in a particular image as an identifier, ignorance of the alternatives.
Other reasons, I think, are a lack of imagination - a bad thing in my eyes - or a social/political statement that digital worlds *should* just be an atomic-world communications tool, and not a space for identity experimentation - also a bad thing to me.
So, yes, I am being judgmental about that choice.
I've been thinking over a recent post by Gwenyth Llewellyn about SL "governments," and realizing that I can pull a general principle out of that subject as well as this one.
If you say, "Importing this atomic world thing is a good solution!" I'm going to do two things:
I'm going to ask what the problem is that that thing is supposed to solve: is it an atomic world problem, and you're using SL as a platform for your atomic issue, that needs to be addressed and resolved in the atomic world?
If it's a digital worlds problem, I'm going to ask, is that atomic solution the best one? Did you really consider other alternatives and decide that was the best, or are you just unthinkingly importing something familiar?
I think the initial discussion about avatar shape got hung up on the first question: it's an answer to an atomic world problem - the kind of discrimination that you reacted so strongly to. In that case, I think that problem is best addressed in the world that created it, and not in SL.
I think SL government initiatives get hung up on the second question: there are digital worlds management problems, but I think the governance people have failed to show that "legislatures" and "courts" are the best solution to the *digital worlds* problem, and not just grabbed for their familiarity.
I think this needs another post...
And, Jen - I'd like to talk about this stuff with you inworld. I think I am showing some insensitivity to atomic-world discrimination issues, in a way that I could avoid while still being an effective advocate for *my* community.
Thank you so much for replying again, Soph. I'm definitely bringing my atomic into this, which is part of the problem (depending on how you look at it!)
So, yeah, if we get a chance to chat in-world, that'd be great too. :) And I'll go read that new post now!
I'm sorry to come late to this discussion, but reading the comments and responses has been instructive. Sophrosyne, I think the thing I like best about your posts is that they make me raging mad. You present your arguments with such passion that I actually want to agree with them. I just can’t.
I find both the original post and a lot of the pursuant comments to be thinly disguised fat-hatred, starting with “…a movement to create female avatars bigger and less fit than the SL standard” as if bigger is *by definition* less fit (the discussion of avatar “fitness” is a whole other conversation). The observation that “Chances are good you eat too much and exercise too little” (and must therefore be fat and thus unhealthy) is devoid of any social context and individualizes access to nutrition and exercise, which are actually FL social (not individual) conditions and anyway are inapplicable to SL. Even the commenter Giulio, whom you praise for “looking to pull us forward to that time and those conditions” conflates “fat and ugly” as if they are naturally complementary. “Each scar, each wrinkle, each unhealthful [according to whom?] kilo on your ass marks a failure,” you say in the original post, and I have to wonder, if failure is scars, wrinkles, and fat, what is success?
And as for, “[t]his avatar shape thing could be…an ideological strike by the meme ‘the ideal is bad; the ideal punishes you for being inferior; don't strive for the ideal but glory in your shortcomings,’” well, this is fascist thinking, that there even exists “the ideal” (and that it is, apparently, unscarred, unwrinkled, and slim) and that striving for it is the only appropriate thing to do. This goes to my point about fat-hatred too, for surely you wouldn’t (and, I’m not saying that you are, that much is clear) suggest that those with disabilities should strive to be able-bodied or that those of minority races should strive to be white, even though both of those, sadly, represent “the ideal” in much of FL. Those who are fat, however, must strive to be thin or else they are glorying in their shortcomings? There’s no reason for fat-hatred in SL: the negligible health concerns that fuel it in FL are completely absent and if it’s displeasing to some as an aesthetic, well, then they need to examine why that is, and not project their own discomfort onto others.
I don’t mind admitting my bias (and I wish you’d admit yours, with your “skinny chalk-white winged tattooed ass” that closely resembles a slim, Caucasian, atomic woman): my main avatar looks like her operator, a stunning fat girl. I find her incredibly beautiful, a reflection of her operator’s hard-won happiness with her own appearance. This point of view may be the very thing that you reject in a later comment, the “importation of FL politics in to SL,” however, I take issue with that position too. Are we to embark on this new reality without benefit of anything we’ve gained in the previous one? Must we make the same mistakes, re-create the same oppressions, and stumble as slowly into progress as our atomic counterparts do?
In your latest comment, you remark “I think physical damage is bad, and should be prevented or cured. So, when people import the signs of that damage into an environment that doesn't damage them - I can think of very few reasons why that would be a good and healthy thing” and I just see red. It is unspeakably cruel to characterize differences in ability, in size, and in shape as “damage” and then to judge that “damage” as “bad.” No one is importing cancer or diabetes or heart disease into SL, it’s impossible, so if someone's vision of themselves includes a wheelchair or a large belly, how is that unhealthy? What if their vision of themselves includes a robotic limb – is that fine for a gynoid, but not for a human amputee? What I read here is the suggestion that it is fine to represent yourself in SL however you wish as long as that representation a) is apolitical (again, according to whom?); and b) fulfills the criteria of FL perfection – fairies, elves, robots, zebras, whatever, as long as they aren’t fat or crippled. Your statement that “I think that problem is best addressed in the world that created it, and not in SL” is a cop-out: racism, able-ism, fat-hatred, and, gods know, sexism exist in SL, whether imported or native is now irrelevant, they exist and refusing to address them in SL, just because they were created in FL, is dangerous and simply allows them to be perpetuated.
The only thing with which I agree in your entire post is this: “Because you atomic people know…that you can do better. You know that you've been stuck inside a system that might have been useful a century or three ago but right now just holds you back, dumbs you down, dwarfs you from a creator and a citizen into a consumer. You know you can do better!” We can do better, in first life and in second, but “better” doesn’t mean unmarked, smooth, and lean; it means vital, engaged, concerned, active, and aware, regardless of how we choose to represent ourselves, whether realistic or whimsical, imaginative or plain.
I've had to think long and hard about my response to this. I don't want this to look like an attack, but much of the thinking here is fundamentally flawed.
I need to preface this post by mentioning that imagination and expression are not at all at risk of being obliterated in SL. There is a reason that the sliders go from 0 to 100 when you are making your shape. There is a reason there are attatchment points all around the av body. Your avatar is there to do with what you want. No one has any right at all to tell you what you can and cannot do in SL. But that also includes you telling other people what to do with their avatar.
Now, down to the point of my post.
You tell people that they should be their true selves in SL, and then put them down for their atomic forms. You point out what you consider flaws and tell people they can do much better. Then you speak of people being held back by society by being in a system that was ok hundreds of years ago, but is not now.
The flaw in all that is that, your atomic form makes you who you are. I have a bad knee from when I was a child, and I was restricted from sports because of that. Had I not had that flaw, I would be a very different person right now. Would *that* form be my true form? I don't know, because I didn't spend a lot of time with sports, I pushed myself into my studies. Because of those studies, I am a microbiologist, focusing on stem cell research, which is perhaps the leading field of transhuman research. Should I be a sports star in SL because that is so much better? Should I cast aside my flaw to become my true inner self?
Every human being has a right to be happy. We are not at a point yet where many "flaws" can be fixed. With your attitude, you are telling people they can not be happy with their lives unless they fit your ideal. Not their ideal, your ideal.
If someone is happy with themselves, and decides to live their second life pretty much the same, why knock them down? It takes a lot more work to live in SL as a realisic av than it does a fantasy av. It also requires just as much creativity, if not more.
If you make your SL avie your ideal, what does that make your atomic self? Faulty. What does that do to your self esteem? Just because you may not be happy with your weight, wrinkles, scars, and anything that comes with those, doesn't mean I can't be happy with mine. Projecting your own unhappiness on others is a fault that shouldn't be in FL or SL.
As far as discrimination, I have had a seven foot tall and about 100 pound (5 feet of that was in her legs, and 70 lbs of that was in her breasts) greasy blonde tell me I was the ugliest guy she had seen. My avatar looks uncannily like me in FL, where I get complimented on my looks often. If I saw someone who looked like her in FL, I would call an ambulance because she wouldn't be able to walk.
I've also had to deal with a very good friend in real life with big bones (and actual big bones, low body fat) crying because everyone called her fat. It is the attitude you have here that causes things like that to happen.
My flaws make me who I am, your flaws make you who you are. I have no problem with you being skinny, chalky, tattoed and winged. In fact I celebrate the diversity and differences. Why are you so harsh that I am 6'1, 180lbs with chest hair.
I cannot say anything more impeccably or articulately than Ilona said it, and I consider myself all the better just for having been present to read her comment. It should come as no surprise which side of the fence I fall with this discussion, but Ilona, Jen and others have said anything I would have wanted to say here.
@Ilona: Thank you! Your comments were beautifully reasoned and expressed, and I'll be spending a lot of time thinking them over. I just wish you'd posted them somewhere likely to get linked to more easily - they deserve a wider audience.
I think where I disagree with you and Camthan (who commented below you) is over what we value most, self-acceptance or self-improvement. Yes, the notion of self-improvement implies judgment, implies holding some conditions better than others. I've said that explicitly, and I stand by it.
You consider that "fascist." I'm not going to nitpick definitions, but I will repeat my view that the encouragement of complacency with one's lot in life is absolutely central to tyranny, be it political, religious or economic.
I think wanting - and working to get - more health, more beauty, more intelligence, more longevity is what is best about being human, is inseparable from political and economic freedom, and is a cause that can be enhanced by embodying visions of the ideal self in digital worlds.
I'm also very tentatively starting to understand the price of that desire, in unhappiness and prejudice. I need a lot more education on that score, and I clearly need to develop more sympathy.
Thank you for challenging me, and starting me towards learning and understanding.
@Camthan: Your focus on happiness is an interesting one. It's a completely different frame from what I use, and it brings a view I need to consider.
As I said in replying to Ilona, I think the place where we part ways is in what we value most, self-acceptance or self-improvement.
You talk of being "happy" with your atomic form, and suggest that I might be "unhappy" with mine. I've never really considered the notion.
I want to be *better,* in every environment, in every respect that I value. Happiness for me comes from the process of improvement, not the state of being.
I can't imagine anything that would make me unhappier than being told "this is your lot in life, this is what you get, who you are, that's it."
I think that acceptance and complacency are dangerous things, personally, morally and politically. I'm hearing here that they're things that a good number of people really value.
I'm going to try to engage people on this, to understand, to see whether we have differences in perspective or a fundamental clash in values. I'm not clear on that yet.
Thank you for your comments: they've opened my eyes to a different view, one I take seriously and will try to understand better.
Wow! You rock, Soph. I really appreciate your unique combination of extreme and heartfelt opinions on the one hand, and graceful receptivity to critical commentary on the other.
I understand where you are coming from, however I don't see being happy as synonymous with being complacent.
You can be perfectly happy with yourself and still strive to change, yourself and society. In fact, I would say that being happy is a key factor in being able to change. If you let flaws and imperfections bog you down, you get less done. Worry about the flaws causes some of the societal stress you are talking about.
The only people I know who have changed their life significantly for the better, are people who tried and tried, getting nowhere with it, got frazzled with it, and stopped. They learned to accept themselves, faults and all, and then things really started falling into place. Whether it was a mental change, physical change, or spiritual change there was the same result. Once they accepted themselves as great human beings, the change came.
The problem is saying "I can never change" and not in saying, "I can accept myself right now and be happy on my road to change."
Also, thank you for taking my comment in the spirit it was meant. For discussion and not arguing.
Thanks, Sophrosyne, for starting a fascinating discussion. There's one POV that I've not seen represented here but have seen elsewhere; its proponents claim that deviation of one's SL avatar from one's RL appearance constitutes fraud or deceit. I was half expecting someone holding that belief to post a comment, and while I am quite opposed to the position myself, it might have provoked interesting discussion as well.
In my Profile I state that I change my avatar quite a bit very often. most of the time I play the opposite gender. I am a hetero male I just find balance playing females. I am exploring different aspects of myself, and Second life is ideal for that. why be you when you can find and be the best parts of you
Thank you for for intelligence and eloquence.
@Anonymous - Thank you! SL is an incredible gift as a tool for exploration and self-discovery.
Please feel welcome here, and in Extropia!
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