I, Who Saw the Face
by Terra_Cide, HSM Editor
In all my years of portraiture study, I have never been able to do an accurate self portrait. I can – and have in the past – made nearly photographically accurate renderings of others’ images, but I have never been able to duplicate the effect with any rendering of myself.
And yet, I still try.
As I’ve tried with my avatar in Home. Physique aside (because for me, that can change with both the lunar cycle, if it’s eighty degrees out, or if there’s eighty inches of snow on the ground), I do my best with the tools available to make the face of my avatar look like mine.
Yeah, I could instead make my avatar’s facial features resemble that of the “ideal female” or even some creation from my imagination, but why? As I see it, my avatar is a digital representation of my offline self – warts and all, metaphorically speaking. I don’t need – or want – to present myself to the virtual world as something I’m not.
But then again, I am only speaking for myself in that respect.
Now granted, there’s only so much customization you can do with the tools Home provides. You can’t add facial/body moles, scars or stretchmarks – I have all the above – for example. Your virtual smile can never contain crooked or missing teeth. So the result you end up with is the “cleaned up” version of yourself; that is, if you choose to attempt to make your avatar resemble you at all.
But what if you could? What if you could make an avatar that is a true-to-life representation of yourself? And if that were possible, would you choose to do so?
Pick a face, any face.
The social implications of these questions are intriguing, especially when you stop and factor in how we perceive ourselves, and how – theoretically – others would perceive us.
Creating a virtual self gives one the opportunity to be something (or someone) they are not; the overweight can be thin, the old can be eternally young. Those who have physical flaws, disfigurements or handicaps can experience being just like anyone else who is fortunate enough to not have these things.
With that in mind then, if Home was able to provide one the ability to more accurately depict themselves as they are, would these individuals choose to create an avatar that would resemble their offline selves so realistically?
It is nice to have the ability to create an avatar of who we’d like to be in real life – an idealized image of ourselves, you could say – and yet there is something about each and every one of us which makes that idealized avatar pale by comparison. So in that respect, perhaps it would be nice to see each other on Home as we really are.
Then again, no one really wants to log into Home and see that their avatar is sporting the same conspicuously large pimple they themselves have on their forehead.
More often than not, instead of creating as good a facsimile of our real selves as we can, we strive to create a character that, in our mind’s eye, will be a creation that everyone will accept, as its physiognomy will represent what in our culture is believed to be “ideal.”
But not everyone does this. Two prime examples that come to mind are HearItWow and our own DarthGranny. Both are not afraid to create digital representations of themselves that are less inclined to be based on cultural ideal and more real to life.
However, both of these individuals have time and time again proven that the content of their respective characters far outshines any culturally unacceptable physical “flaws” they may have. Their avatars could resemble Joseph Merrick and the people who know them by their words would still find them attractive people to associate with.
"I have a dream where our avatars will not be judged by the tightness of their Lycra, or the fabulousness of their poses..."
This is also true for others who forego being a humanoid avatar altogether. I have a friend who’s virtual face and form I have never seen in the two years I’ve known him, as it’s usually obscured under an animal character costume, the Black Knight helmet, or even floating about as a spaceship. I think I’ve even seen something resembling a blanc mange jiggling about.
Perhaps that is the beauty of the virtual world. A person who may not be a supermodel in looks or be a modern day Adonis can gain friendships that would have been otherwise unobtainable, due to how well they can hold a conversation and express themselves through text. And having visually appealing pixels is just and extra add-on.
To continue with the example of HearItWow and DarthGranny, the strangers who may come up to them and insult them for their respective appearances – either believing themselves to be amusing or because they are simply legitimately rude people – inform everyone with in the radius of their chat bubble of the kind of person they are for the negative, regardless of how appealing their outward appearance may be.
The ones who are in that vicinity – who can read your words – could be people you want to get to know – and yes, guys who want to meet girls, I am talking to you – and you just blew it by demonstrating how much of an inconsiderate jackass you are.
As you can see, good first impressions aren’t based upon visual cues alone.
And yet it’s no secret that both online and offline, we are judged by our appearances, especially by people who do not know who we are. Not all of us can be Stephen Hawking, who in spite of his physical limitations, has quite frankly one of the most brilliant minds of the modern era.
Jon Kolko
Not all of us can be Jon Kolko, who balances the image of heavily tattooed arms and gauged earlobes with a successful professional career, being a former Professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, an author and one of the premiere experts in the field of interactive design. And even he gets judged by strangers on the street.
So we stick with what is safe – especially if we are new to Home – in order to be accepted, even if it doesn’t represent what we truly look like. As we all know, the more nefarious users of Home – whose only purpose being there is to irritate and harass other people – have no problem with giving people flak over their digital looks, and that is doubled when you dare to present yourself in anything less than a supermodel-perfect avatar.
However, there is a flipside to this misrepresentation of ourselves, and much of the outcome of such an act relies on the integrity of the individual.
If you are the type who is of a frank nature, or is honest to nearly a fault – and those people are a rare find – you have no problem with informing someone you’ve just met in Home that the avatar you’ve chosen is a façade and doesn’t bear any resemblance to the person at the controls.
Yet there are those who will swear up and down to your virtual face that this is who they really are, when it really isn’t. Usually though, the strain of carrying the act wears them down over time, and it is up to those the charade was perpetrated upon decide how to proceed once the truth is revealed. Others will passively lie, and just let people believe what they see, without dissuading or encouraging them. And there are plenty enough stories out there about the end results of such acts – and the reasons people have for doing it – that they really don’t need to be retold here.
In the end, maybe Sony’s character designers got the mix right – that you can create a character that looks like you (if you want), but not so much that the reactions you get from others turn you off from using the system completely. And while some may argue that our avatar’s current features look “creepy” and inorganic, it sure beats the ridiculous bobble-headed cartoon caricatures the other guys have.
July 7th, 2011 by Terra_Cide | 16 comments
Terra _Cide is the former Community Manager for Lockwood Publishing and Editor Emeritus for HomeStation Magazine.
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Right on the mark Terra! I never intentionally made my avatar look like me. I used mine as a part of the game of Home and made her a pretty red head to start, but her hair color changes with the wind and her choice of clothes. I have been told by others that she looks like me, but that was never my intent. Perhaps we all make them a bit like our real selves without even thinking about it. In the long run I believe that many people do try to make an honest rendition of themselves, perhaps a younger or more slim version, but still close. Then, as you said, there are those who just have fun with it and are rarely seen as humans at all, or create wild and crazy outfits, or come out almost exclusively as the opposite sex, ect. I look at my avatar as kind of a canvas that I can paint a new look on each day. To me this is a part of the allure of Home, like decorating my apartments is. Great job on this article.
:^/ At first I tried to make my avatar resemble myself as closely as possible, but quickly ran into the limitations of the character editor. Likewise with clothing.
Over time, I have accumulated third party fare that increases my avatar’s similarity to myself, and incorporated it. The Playground Bedhead hair style is a good example of this. Also, while I haven’t found virtual clothing that exactly duplicates my real wardrobe, I have found stuff virtual stuff that I wish I could find in real life, so it evens out.
:^/ However, from another armchair psychiatrist’s perspective, the choices we make from the limited selections presented to us nevertheless reflect our personalities, and thus partly reflect our true selves. After all, are the choices we make in our lives not more important than the appearance of our physical forms, even in the real world?
Ironically, my avatar’s face and body are almost exactly what I looked like 35 years ago. Only real difference is that I made the hair gray. Even though now, at the age of 72, I still do not have gray hair.
So why did I go with that age for my avatar appearance? Because not only does the Sony palette not include scars and moles, it also does not include the subtle signs of aging. The pull of gravity in the inexorable march to the grave affects appearance in ways that are not easy to reproduce accurately.
And frankly, why should it? I rather hope God is kind enough when we reach Heaven to let us choose what age we would like to appear. I would prefer to see my own grandmother as the vibrant young woman she was at 25 than as I last saw her, shrunken to a skeletal whisper of herself by the ravages of cancer at the age of 86.
While I have been known of late to zip around the CP dressed in one of the Aurora ship suits, and spend a great deal of time in my Homeling Echochrome, my ‘go-to’ avatar is pretty close to my real life self.
The biggest differences are the signs of wear on my 40 year old skin and the longer, tied back hair (I havent had long hair for over a decade, but i do miss it at times). I even went so far as to include my ‘pasta-belly’.
I was asked once if i cared if peoples avatars were different from thier real life selves, and my answer was a definitave no. I couldnt care less what a person looks like in real life, so why should i worry about what thier avatar looks like (or if its a different gender, or a different creature, or what have you). Although some avatars are quite nice to looks at, i’m in Home for the conversation not the condements.
I tried to make me look like myself and in some aspects I succeeded having been told so by offering a real life picture of myself for comparison. But then again, if I make me look like a robot then forget it because I have never looked like a robot. When I dress like a pirate I can only say that when as a child I dressed as a pirate using coal dust, a plastic sword and who knows what else so that’s close enough. The thought was there.
There’s no using the eye cam to make a head which works not so well but perhaps good enough in Fight Night boxing, 4 I think. Hair is added later and it is difficult. One can use a photo sometimes to create a head. I don’t know if using the eye cam would be a good idea for our avatars but it might be fun to do. But we can’t.
My default avi looks as much like me as I can make it… but it still has that “fakeness” to it. I would a PS-Eye function that would map our faces and reconstruct us in Home.
One can dream I guess.
Personally, I built my avatar to look as much like my actual appearance as I could, and I dress it in much the same way that I actually dress. But I’ve known many Home users who don’t. One user told me, very poignantly, that she didn’t *like* her own appearance. So she crafted herself as she wished she looked — as she saw herself mentally — and to hell with any truth in advertising.
She wasn’t out to “snare” anyone as such, or deliberately deceive; she simply wanted to have the freedom to be something more than what her genetics had granted her, and revel in the idea of socially interacting with such an appearance. I totally get it.
One thing I don’t do, and that’s dress as I normally dress. Otherwise, there’d be a lot of jeans and t-shirts (gah! T-shirts! >.<) and tanktops in my wardrobe. Although, I do have a black dress from Codeglue that looks a lot like one I already own, as well as the red platform stilettos from Lockwood, which resemble a pair I own.
A lot of the people who have sat for me to do a portrait in the past (or those who I’ve drawn because I wanted to) also have had similar insecurities about their looks. It’s amazing -- and highly rewarding -- when I show them the finished product, and they see for themselves that they are far better looking than what their self esteem would have them believe.
This is why I *had* to use that Villon self-portrait sketch as the featured image. The original was one of the pieces for sale in the gallery I ran some years ago, and probably my favorite piece in the whole collection. It’s not very big -- 7 x 12 inches -- and it shows the signs of wear a simple piece of paper its age would be expected to have. It’s also valued at around $5000.
It serves as a metaphor for all or us; that none of us are perfectly airbrushed supermodels that you’d see on the cover of a magazine, but what we are is far more valuable and a lot more beautiful.
I often wonder while wandering around Home who is ‘honest’ with their appearance, but all it takes is stopping and looking when I’m not chasing down orbs in Aurora. I applaud these people rather than scorn them, as I cannot be honest on Home about my own appearance (to be fair, however, my wife also helped design my avatar, but I don’t know if that makes me feel any better), good article. ;^)
A good article and interesting comments.
At first I tried to make a fem avi like myself but couldn’t. So then I just took an off-the shelf model. Now I have a dozen or more in my wardrobe: different hair, ethnic groups, makeup, clothes styles, costumes. I also have 30 or 40 pix of others I’ve done because it got too hard to remember all the details to reconstruct one.
When people ask if I look my avi, I answer: “No, I’m much older (check my profile which has ‘Granma” in it) and definitely heavier.” Sometimes they run away, sometimes they stay and talk.
If they ask if I’m really a girl, I answer: “No, I’m really a brain-sucking alien. BWAHAHAHAH.” Sometimes they run away, sometimes they stay and talk.
In spite of, or because of, this I do have a variety of Friends.
Bayern, I know this is a rude question to ask a lady, but how old are you (in chronological years)? I always thought I was the oldest female gamer in Home but you might have me beat.
I don’t know your age, but I’ll be 74 in September.
However, I believe you’re a much more experienced gamer.
OK, you take the title, Bayern. I will be 73 in August. So now I am the SECOND oldest female gamer in Home. And you need to join the Grey Gamers! Contact Burbie52 for info.
The more I consider it, the more I believe you hold the title. Even if my biological age is a little greater than yours, my gaming age is only about 6 1/2 years. I wouldn’t be comfortable appearing to be a much more experienced and knowledgeable gamer than I am.
Let’s share the title! At our time of life, a year or two or five don’t make much difference. Besides, you are a much more knowledgeable gamer than I am.
I’ve met other “grannies who game” in game stores. Maybe there are some on Home who just haven’t revealed their ages yet.
When I first became a closed Home beta member I made my initial avatar to resemble me as closely as possible. As an artist, I spent a lot of time attempting to recreate myself in virtual form. Back then, there really wasn’t much variety of outfits and costumes, so it seemed the common sense thing to do. Once Home opened to the public and started going downhill (from my perspective), I left.
I’ve only recently re-visited Home, less than two months ago and was happily surprised to see the plethora of clothing options that had been added in my absence.
I’ve stated in another thread recently that no one has ever seen my face in Home, and with the exception of my first few months here in the beginning, that is true. In Home, I dress in sci-fi or fantasy attire that I think looks cool. This look serves to openly advertise that this is NOT how I look in real life, and anyone looking at my avatar instantly knows this about me. Underneath my several choices of helmets, my avatar’s face still resembles me as closely as I am able to make it. But to me, looks in a virtual world are not important and I know that the value of one’s words and kindness are more important than anything.
In real life, my mind is somewhat different… but only where attraction is concerned. In real life I have friends who are exceptionally good looking, average, and what some might consider below average looking. All are friends, and all are treated equally.
The only difference between Home and real life for me where relationships is concerned is those with whom I have felt a deeper connection. Relationships where I wonder, if this person really is a woman… what does she look like, and would we be interested in dating if she lived in my city? I only mention this because I’m currently finding out about dating on Home and it seems such a silly notion to me. However, I’ve recently met a few females (or possibly males posing as such) who’ve peaked my curiosity and interest after getting to know them a little more). I wouldn’t care at all if they don’t look like their avatars on Home as they do irl. But of course, I am a visual animal and stimulated by certain appearances… so I would only hope that if I actually ever did wrap my mind around the concpet of finding romance through the internet, that the woman I’m interested is at least attractive to me in reality.
I still maintain that this is a virtual world and anything goes. I see nothing wrong with making your avatar look as much like you as you can make it, or playing it out as the opposite gender who wields a battle club and shield. I certainly don’t think people should be chided for making an avatar that they feel is more attractive than they are in reality though.