Home Avatars: A Virtual Extension of the Holographic Self
by Kozfear, HSM guest contributor
For centuries, perhaps for as long as humans have claimed rights to property, particular items have marked, identified, and—in many instances—kept people in their place.
From what form of dress, down to colors and fabrics, signified one’s social class, to the type of armor a soldier wore in battle—objects have long drawn lines of social distinction and hierarchy. In China, for instance, a very specific shade of yellow was reserved solely for the Emperor, and particular gold cloth or tissue could be worn only by the Queen and other high Royal titles in Elizabethan England. This still rings true today, yet I would argue we live more in a taste- rather than class-oriented society, though class distinctions still remain.
We’re all aware that, on Home, we can “be” whomever we choose. Whichever traits we wish to exhibit, the particular form and shape we desire to put on display—all available at the click of your controller. I can become a waif-like Pixie complete with wings and glowing, ethereal eyes, replicate a favorite in-game character, or mix-and-match different wardrobe elements to concoct an avatar stemming from pure insanity.
Still, while some endeavor to replicate their real-world features and others to obliterate them, this projection of desired observation is not limited to Home or other virtual spaces, but an extension of social phenomena born from our modern world’s intensely individualistic, consumerist coercion.
As occurs in Home, people in “real life” cloak themselves in the commodities by which they wish to be recognized. Entire sub-cultures and social groups identify with certain items of clothing, hair styles, makeup, from the stereotypical Prep and Goth to more modern Hipsters and BoHo Chic that populate our record stores and tattoo parlors.
People thus self-identify with objects that are put on display for others to recognize at a glance, like tribal markings or Maori tattoos. Some fill their walls with the books one is “supposed” to read without ever breaching their covers, or spend an hour styling their hair to make it appear as though it hasn’t been washed in a week. (Editor’s note: this hairstyling trend bugs the hell out of me.)
In our modern world, these objects, and thus identities, are transposable. One can switch “groups” as easily as changing one’s wardrobe. Tired of the whole “Goth” thing? Just wipe off the eyeliner, toss the fishnets, and adorn whatever commodity costume fits your next phase best. Many groups have their own distinct uniforms and appearances, just as they do in Home: Reapers, Frostys [sic], Hammies, Homelings, fams, mobs, Assasins, &c. But what does this mutability say about identity? If we can reassociate our entire lives based on a wardrobe change, where is the who? Where is the you?
But all our parts are interchangeable, and perhaps this is one of Home’s greatest seductions. In the real world, to attain a new self-identity by replacing one’s objects requires a fair financial investment, time to acquaint with new friends, distance oneself from old ones, and to master the finer subtleties of a group’s dynamic. In Home this may be done with a minutia of microtransactions and some inventive time spent “in wardrobe.”
So, what is the difference — or is there one?
From what I’ve observed in the real world, people collect and surround themselves with objects they wish to transpose onto their character—not just what they like, but who they are. To address this phenomenon, I created the term “Supraficiality,” as opposed to superficial, because it seems we’re not even dealing with surface structures anymore, but instead identities that hover above the surface—ephemeral, indistinct, holographic—yet we still fight vehemently for its recognition.
I once worked in an amazing record store in San Francisco, assigned to the DVD department, and I recall one incident in particular that slapped me in the face with my own susceptibility. Viewing a used box set of the Complete Monty Python, I caught myself thinking, “Am I the type of person that would have this proudly on display? Hell yes!”
Hell WHAT? What was I thinking? How does a DVD box set communicate an ounce of who I am to anyone? But this is how we communicate today, how we judge one another—who you’re going to approach, talk to, date, and also who you’re not going to approach or even associate with.
In Home, however, it’s commonly accepted that people are not what they “seem,” as avatar creation is so simple and capricious. One has to spend a decent amount of time with another individual to attempt some form of personal connection, whereas in reality, we take things at their face value. I find this a bit ironic, and somewhat tragic—that we accept identical forms of visual deception, absorb the hologram and dismiss the misplaced individual beneath, and that it takes the interstice of the virtual for us to delve deeper. Perhaps we can learn from our digital interactions and apply the same watchful eye, the curiosity and patience required to form any sort of relationship, to our real world interludes.
Indeed, within Home, many of us speak to and befriend those we wouldn’t imagine even associating with outside the digital realm, be it due to age, appearance, sub-culture, profession, gender, and—most obviously—location. Home has opened us up to an entire world of individuals who may not only invent a plethora of selves to embody, but has also given each of us access to a potential world-view that is broader, more accepting, understanding, while at the same time keeping us on high alert for the duplicity inherent in models of self-creation. An interesting, but not incompatible, contrast.
No one is ever who they merely appear to be, but Home and its interchangeable avatars are certainly not the source of these altered states; it is a natural extension from everything our society has taught us: that you’re worth only as much as you appear to be, and you can appear to be as much as you can afford. I hope that Home and other virtual societies continue to violate this gross underestimation of human value, and perhaps it is we—openly Other as our pixilated selves—who can penetrate the supra, super, and sub surfaces into what lies beneath—beings seeking the company and comfort of commonality, the creative inspiration of difference, and the depths of self normally cocooned within our commodified shells.
Getting advice/opinions from others is never a bad thing,and getting those that differ from your viewpoint should never b dismissed without careful consideration and much thought.Often when this happens 2 me i’ll end up modifying my original opinion 2 incorporate the valid points suggested.”The creative inspiration of difference” is a better way of saying what i was trying 2 say elsewhere about blending opposites and getting something different than either original.Btw your avatar is a very good likeness of u,while it isn’t there yet i think the day when it will b nearly impossible 2 tell the difference between an avatar and a digital pic is fast approaching.”Your only worth what u appear 2 b” is something i learned at a very young age,thankfully,2 b a falsehood.Its a very valueable lesson 2 learn and its 2 bad that its not taught in the schools.Much like most of the hard and useful life lessons it has 2 b learned by experience.
I’m pretty much me. I express identity through art. I make sure people believe who I am with or without much information.
Good article.
Viewing a used box set of the Complete Monty Python, I caught myself thinking, “Am I the type of person that would have this proudly on display? Hell yes!”
And this little blurb from an avatar we may not know very well, suddenly enlightens us just a tad, and displays one of the many commonalities we may have that we hadn’t known before.
Monty Python would proudly be displayed in my home!
Since the nosdrugis avatar(s) rarely display virtual garments/items of any real value, and since fur-style is NEVER a concern… what does that say about the pilot of the avatar(s)?
Would John Cleese display a “nosdrugis action figure”, a “nosdrugis art piece”, or a “nosdrugis video box set” in his home?
…
Hmm.
…
Always enjoy your writings, Koz
John Cleese would probably not display a Nosdrugis Video Box Set in his home, but I’m betting he is laughing at the steady stream of TooMuchDean Youtube videos he checks on regularly!
Very indepth and insightful article Koz. I don’t think my avatar really looks like me that much. I didn’t really try to make her that way anyway. I am older than she that’s for certain, and I don’t think she looks much like my younger self either. I think of her like a 3d paper doll that I can dress up and make look anyway I want. I have one that is Goth and others that look more old fashioned. They are like a canvas that you can paint on and make any color you like depending on how you feel that day. In that way they are an extension of our real selves I guess, no matter what they look like.
I see your point about the class distinctions too. In Home we have several I am afraid, hence the hostility toward newbies who don’t have the right clothes, ect. Also the creation of mafias and fams, which I still don’t quite understand I guess. Great article, and I look forward to working with you on videos.
Mafias and fams r basically the same as your grey gamers.They r like minded ppl who get together and socialize,i think sometimes ppl get hung up on the names mafia and fam.I remember keara once asking me what criminal behavior could they possibly b doing on home.4 the most part mafias on home don’t participate in illegal behaviors,yes there r exceptions,most r ppl that just get together 2 socialize and they act like most societies act.There r leaders,”soldiers”,mid-level officials,and recruiters but there r also some ppl that do nothing in the mafia but talk and hang out with others.All of these things r ok by me,each person is acting out a fantasy with the willing help of others.As in all societies some ppl disagree,some ppl try 2 b hurtful 2 others,some think they r tougher than any1 else,but these r flaws of ppl not the society that they happen 2 b in.While there is hostility 2″newbies”from some fams or mafias many view them as potentially easy recruits and treat them kindly.Btw i 1st heard the term”newbie” used in a derogatory way in the EA Poker room by non-mafia poker players,so this isn’t solely a mafia thing.
There’s a Nosdrugis action figure? OOOOoooo I wantee!
Does it have kung-fu-action-grip?
Now with improved “klenting action”!
Or how about a Nosdrugis Q-Tip Holder?
Hey, if Nancy Pearl can have an action figure, so can General Nosdrugis.
http://www.mcphee.com/laf/
She’s a real person. I attended one of her lectures a few years back (a brown-bagger for Smithsonian librarians.) And she is worthy of having her very own action figure, an entertaining and intelligent advocate for literacy and the joy of reading. And yes, I own a copy of her action figure, “with amazing push-button shushing action.” Next question?
A quick Google search on “custom action figure” shows that a limited-edition Nos doll would be quite do-able, although it would not be cheap.
Thank you for an article that made me stop and think. I’ve found it interesting that many people on home view an avatar as they would a person in real life and make the same assumptions about who they are and how they are feeling based solely on the appearance of their avatar. We are so used to reading a person’s body language that we continue to do that on home even though it no longer applies in the same way it does in the real world. I know of people who have changed the appearance of their avatar so as to be better received in home. I must admit that my avatar does not look like me but an extension of what I would like to look like. I even have to stop myself, at times, from making false assumptions based on avatar random body language. Many a time, when sitting alone, some concerned person would come up to me and ask if I was OK and say that I looked sad. Thanks again for the fine article.
“How does a DVD box set communicate an ounce of who I am to anyone?”
A lot.
A common phenomena is that we seek out items that fit our personality. In fact, advertisers use this to their advantage.
For instance, I while back I purchased this messenger bag online. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/43432440@N08/5436762696/#/) After seeing how plain it was, I decided that I wanted to spruce it up a bit. After watching a small independent film called “Office Space”, I went on eBay and bought myself some flair from my favorite movies, tv shows, games, and such. After I finished putting on my flair.
Similar to that Monty Python DVD set, the flair I chose was stuff that I felt best represented my personality. That stuff was me. It kinda told who I was in a hatshell. It’s what advertisers do basically.
When you go out shopping for clothing, decorations, and so on, we look to see what things we can use to describe ourselves. Advertisers exploit this via associating a feeling within advertisements. They use that feeling to manipulate people into buying their product.
Also, human beings like to express themselves. We like Facebook because it’s about us. We can customize it to our liking. It’s a digital snapshot of us. We like connecting to other people with the same tastes and beliefs. It just goes back to the simple fact that human beings are social creatures. We need to connect with others in order to live a full life. Hell, our very survival might depend on others.
I find it interesting that I settled on one avatar very early, especially since she does not look like me. Every time I try to change her, it just looks wrong. I throw away the changes, and revert to a saved copy of the virtual SealWyf.
I like to think of her as “Dora the Explorer grown up” — a young, thin, vaguely Hispanic woman with messy hair, usually wearing blue jeans or a kimono. My Homeling avatar was derived from her, minus the hair and with a few facial modifications. I also reserve one slot for a self-portrait, my rendering of the slightly dumpy, white-haired German-French woman who passes for me in the mirror.
The whole matter of “you are what you own” is a familiar one to me. And since the person I am is the sort who fills every available wall with bookshelves (not to mention the piles of books on the floor), it has severely reduced my available living space. Every time I consider thinning out the collection, I retreat. Selling off the Japanese and Russian novels, the 19th-century adventure tales, the complete hardcover Lovecraft, the Victorian London research library, the foreign-language dictionaries, the Patrick O’Brian novels, the Judge Dee mysteries, the Tarot and Spiritualism reference collection, the early-edition Oz books, the poetry, the origami books or the antique crochet patterns would diminish me, in ways that are hard to describe but feel quite real. These books, in their various sub-collections, are parts of me: embodiments of people I once was and projects I once found compelling. I’m stuck with them, in the same way I’m stuck with long-accumulated body-fat. It will be up to my executors to dispose of them.
At least my collections of virtual items take up no real-world space. That’s one reason I find them so satisfying. Turn off the console, and the enormous Visari planter and animated fountain poof away, leaving me in a room with a futon, some nice electronics, a few shelves of video games, and entirely too many books.
“…the Japanese and Russian novels, the 19th-century adventure tales, the complete hardcover Lovecraft, the Victorian London research library, the foreign-language dictionaries, the Patrick O’Brian novels, the Judge Dee mysteries, the Tarot and Spiritualism reference collection, the early-edition Oz books, the poetry, the origami books or the antique crochet patterns…”
Hi. I’m moving in. Kthx.
I modeled my avatar to look as much like me as possible; even the wardrobe choices — unless I’m going for something truly fantastical — reflect stuff that I would wear in real life. I’ve tried to break out of this mold (similar to what Keara described in her role-playing article), but it’s never felt completely comfortable.
In my head, Home is both a fantasyland and a rabbit hole, and I always have this vague dread in the back of my mind that if my avatar strays from representing “me” as such, I’ll end up losing myself in the illusion. I don’t know if that makes any sense.
What Koz is asking with this article fascinates me, though: who are we, when we’re not busy telling the rest of the world whom we are?
I’m something of an Eric Hoffer fanatic — it astonishes me that “The True Believer” isn’t required reading in all U.S. schools — and his aphoristic writing style is astonishing to read. He once wrote something which I think aptly describes many people in real life, and indeed uniquely applies to Home:
“What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist.”
Indeed, it is another Hoffer quote which underlies many of the sociological questions HomeStation has raised: “When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.”
In real life, we have very little free will. You didn’t choose your race, gender, genetic predispositions, ethnicity, height, body type, and so forth. Yet in Home, you have the free will to do all of that.
And what astonishes me — pleasantly — is how many people really do go crazy with it. The willingness of the human mind to dissociate itself from the body it is housed in. The self-awareness to say, “I am not THAT,” (pointing to the body in the mirror) “And instead I choose to be THIS.”
Which, of course, raises a fascinating question: WHAT *ARE* WE, WHEN STRIPPED OF ALL THE MARKERS AND IDENTIFIERS WE POINT TO OURSELVES AS?
This, I think, is where the core social anthropology of Home is.
Theravada monks spend their whole lives in asceticism and meditation, trying to transcend the reality we live in. On Home, it is as simple as pressing a button. The difference is that Home does not alter our consciousness or awareness — we derive from it what we bring into it, and nothing more — and thus we show that a non-physical world of our own manufacture is as imperfect as we are.
I’ve re-read this article four times now, and it keeps playing with my brain. Exceptionally well-done, Koz.
Move on in, Norse. But bring your own bookcases. Mine are full.
Oh, I understand how you feel, Seal, and I’m not denying personal identity and attachment to objects. At the risk of being incredibly pretentious enough to quote my own Master’s Thesis, regarding how I feel about my books:
“I consider them a part of me, an appendage, so many phantom limbs typically invisible to the naked eye, but which become apparent in some way to anyone who bothers to converse with me for five minutes; not that I start talking about them (though sometimes I do tend to carry on), but they form a sort of spectre, a ghost at my side—-all of my collected reading and the anticipation of all I’ve yet to read congeals into a knot in my throat, an unaccounted for spark in my eye.”
BUT--it is the ENCOUNTER with me, the conversation, the interaction, the in-depth, that is me, not the books themselves, though my attachment to them-as-objects is certainly irrational.
What is the difference between people like you and I and others with homes brimming over with books and READ them and those with similar homes who fill their shelves for-the-sake-of? To SHOW others they have knowledge or interest they want people to think they possess, when truly they’ve never read a one? Or someone who covers their messenger bag with “flair” the types of which they WANT people to think about them?
The objects are the same.
The presentation is the same.
So, again, where does the “who” exist?
This is part of my point, and likely the most important of its queries.
The ability 2 play god a little bit by being able 2 decide what your avatar looks like is 1 of the draws of home no doubt.If u r unhappy with your real life image theres no need 2 use it,personally im ok with how i look and used it as my avatars image but i can see the allure 2 do something different.As 4 the question”where does the “who”exist?”Its my belief that its whats in your mind that makes u who u r more than any other 1 thing.The myriad tomes on our shelves do give a indication of the preferences of the inner u,but dont nearly tell the whole story of what makes u who u r.I 2 refuse 2 sell any books,even though many would fetch a nice price,after reading a good book,sometimes many times,it almost becomes a good friend and selling 1 would seem like selling a good and faithful friend into servitude.Not being able 2 part with favorite books i had become more selective about the books i bought in order 2 keep my library manageable.Then i finally got on the internet last year,now i can read almost anything i want and dont have 2 worry about clutter.
The Kindle has saved my sanity and my remaining apartment space. I’m on my second Kindle now — the first one didn’t break, but I filled it up! I actually read more since I acquired it, since I can buy books without having to worry where the heck I am going to put them. But certain kinds of books — crafts books, poetry, books that are destined for the reference collection, books without an e-book edition — are still acquired in paper.
You were smart to buy the Kindle; I bought the iPad for the same reason: books. Then discovered that the iPad offered far fewer book choices. They didn’t even have the Steeg Larsson trilogy! Fortunately, iPad began to offer a free ap to (wait for it…..drum roll) Kindle! So now I use my ridiculously expensive iPad to get what I really wanted which is a Kindle.
You know its funny. My experiences with making avatars look like me usually end up by me getting frustrated with the editor and just using a default. My first encounter with this was when I first started playing Oblivion on the PC. I spent over an hour trying to make that elven b**tard look like me when I came across a revelation. “Adam, this is a single player game. No one is going to see this avatar. Hell, you aren’t even going to see this avatar ’cause the game is in first person!”
I’ll admit I spend a few minutes tweeking but that’s about it. It would be interesting to see other peoples avatar’s facial configurations. Its too bad they aren’t capable of being displayed in numerical format. The two dimensional grid editing is difficult to capture. Does anyone else find that some facial feature parameters don’t appear to change much of anything?
Yes some of the changes are very subtle Adam, but if you turn your avatar to profile as you, say, use the brow parameter, you will see the differences you can’t see full front. I think the avatar creation is one of the things I like most in Home because it is creative if you put some work into it. One of the things I have noticed that really changes the way my avatar looks quickly is the hair styles. The avatar remains the same always, but the hair is as inconstant as the wind.