Sarah Luger!

COMS 505!
Dr. I. Reilly!
Theory Assignment (Avatars)!

A variety of Sarahs!
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A few of my personal avatars are sprinkled throughout this

assignment. Most are for online communities, and some of them I was able to
customize by changing attributes like hair style and length, or buying new
clothing using in-game currency. Other times, such as on forums and social
media websites, I have taken photos off of Google, or from art that I like. I have
also commissioned artists to make drawings of my character and used those in
some capacity. This is just a small array of available options for
representation that exist in cyberspace.!

Avatars!
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Avatars are ways for people to interact and communicate on communities, in virtual

worlds, and in video games. An avatar is the digital representation, human or otherwise, of a
real person in a virtual world (Wang and Rizzo). This is a form of representation, one that often
has a great deal of freedom associated with it, due to the amount of customization that is often
available to users. Avatars can be designed to suit the owner's choice of how they want to be
represented, whether it be a realistic representation of their actual appearance, an idealized
form, or even a surreal character or animal (Wang and Rizzo). This puts the user in control,
giving them the freedom to try different things they may not feel free to do in the real world.!

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Using their avatars, users can interact with other people

through their avatars. The majority of communication between

users is text-based, done through an avatars body or facial
actions, or through microphones.!

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The use of avatars also gives users the freedom to

experiment with different identities. Users can change their age, race or gender, which can
make them feel more comfortable and fit in, or simply give them an opportunity to try something
different. This can be especially liberating for women who are the targets of harassment, or
trans* individuals who can participate in the community as the gender with which they identify.
As one male-to-female transgender gamer says, having a female avatar is more than just a
distraction, but it also gives her the opportunity to appear as I
truly feel inside, and let me interact with others without the
stigma of being or appearing to be transgendered
attached (Brennan). While some people may swap genders for
fun, for some it provides a truly liberating experience that
cannot be found offline.!

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There are two contrasting views of the effects of this

flexibility online. One is that the online world maintains and

even extends the gender inequality that exists offline. The
contrasting view is that the online world - and especially gamebased worlds - is a place for relieving gender gaps, or positive
exploration. (Huh and Williams) While both of these points are

valid, I am unsure if they are necessarily contrasting. I agree that

gender inequality still exists online, and can even be exaggerated in
some cases, but there can simultaneously be room for positive
exploration. Unfortunately, according to Huh and Williams study, not
many users take advantage of the opportunity to gender-swap their
avatars, and more men than women tended to swap their avatars genders.!
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Avatars can still be beneficial in other ways, however. Due to the amount of harassment

that women face online, a male user playing as a woman will, whether they intended to or not,
get a glimpse into what it is like being harassed as a woman. As a result, they can gain a
greater understanding of womens experiences and become more empathetic towards them.!

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! For some, avatars are merely a virtual representation of
ones reality or fantasy, however for others, avatars provide a
freedom to try on different identities, which can free an
individual, or provide greater understandings of others. !

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Bibliography!
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Brennan, Seraphina. Anti-aliased: virtual worlds as the great equalizer, Massively, 24

June, 2009. <http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/06/24/anti-aliased-virtual-worlds-as-the-greatequalizer/>!

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Huh, S & Williams, D 2009, Dude looks like a lady: gender swapping in an online game,

in W Bainbridge (Ed.), Online worlds: Convergence of the real and the virtual, Springer, New
York.!
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Wang, Ning and Skip Rizzo. "Avatars and Agents." The International Encyclopedia of

Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference

Online. 27 October 2014 <http://0-www.communicationencyclopedia.com.mercury.concordia.ca/
subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9781405131995_yr2012_chunk_g97814051319956_ss75-1>