Class 13: Identity in the context of virtual worlds.

Identity in the context of virtual world is a special way to meet people all over the world. The only identity markers are gender and langauge. And as people are becoming more billingual these days , people all over the world could communicate without judging about their appearance or physical features. In a virtual world, people can chat wherever they are and this is a great point about it. 

In a second life, people can manipulate avatars. It is an alter ego. Although I am an asian, I could become a white female, huge black male, or a vampire. In a 'Second Life', we can become vampires as our avatars. And in Meshmoon, we can become a robot. And avatars can do stuff that we cannot do in real world. Avatars can fly across the sea, go through a wall, run faster etc. People usually choose what they want to be in their inner mind. For me, I want to be a superhero, a strong male for my avatar. People can choose their avatar and these might reflect themselves in real world or not.

The virtual world is a great educational place for student in future. However, there are some limitations. People are from all over the country so there is no idea who they are. They might have a bad influence on kids. When I visited a 'Second life', I went to a night club and the avatars were sending kisses to each other and the contents of chat could be inappropriate. There should be a boundary for kids to stay in a virtual world. 

When I was young, I really loved playing "Sims", building house and living as family. It is very fun to play with avatars. People can experience and learn new things that they will never be able to learn in a real world. People can indirectly experience being " another-self" by just few clicks.  However, there should be restrictions because people might have illusion such as playing videogame makes kids aggressive. people should not be confused by avatars and themselves. Thus, I believe avatars should be as close to who you are. 

Throughout this course, I used lots of avatars to explore virtual worlds. It was very enjoyable to learn about avatars and identity. I learned how avatars play a huge role in virtual world through this course and how we can represent ourselves in virtual world. I always loved flying across everywhere with my avatar. I get satisfied from looking at my avatars flying. It was a valuable time to develop the identity and avatar. Following pictures are my favorites that I took during the semester.