Avatar Personal Space
by BONZO, HSM team writer
Can you stand too close to an avatar? Is it rude to walk through a crowd? Is it rude to stand in front of the entrance to a space or game?
There are collisions in place to bump against walls, and furniture and to some degree avatars. Yet avatars are merely bumped out of the way but for some reason it seems rude to do so. Trolling involves so many levels of obnoxious and rude behavior, and certainly space invasion is probably the most common one.
The lewd acts of trolls include standing behind a female avatar and crouching to one knee so their face is right in front of her rear, standing in front of a sitting avatar and performing the hip thrusting Rave dance, or standing so close the avatars overlap, or the classic dancing right up against an avatar.
The first time I saw a male avatar crouched behind a female avatar sitting in the demure position I though, “aww how sweet” because it was perfectly innocent and affectionate to make it seem as though the avatars were sitting together with their arms around each other. So that is really all it is about, the appearance. What it looks like to others. There are levels of intimacy that aren’t possible through the proxy beings we control, and users have found ways of simulating it for the sake of appearances only. These acts don’t really change anything about the experience physically, but can alter our visual perception of it. When we see the level of trolling that exhibits lewd behavior, we find it deplorable, because it just looks wrong.
Yes, we understand that avatars are proxies and not real, but we still seem to require a comfortable level or personal space between our proxies. In real life we have this invisible map of proxemics! Close enough to touch or hug is intimate space, arms length is personal space, beyond arm length is social space. This is an idea that seems more prevalent in American culture, and bleeds over into virtual space. I may be wrong about this, but it seems that this only fits to social interactive games like Home, Second Life and to some extent the Sims. While playing Assassins Creed in Manhunt you hide with your team in crowds, and often the proximity doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. In that context though there is a strategic purpose to crowding together; in Home there is no strategy behind it but certainly a method to being obnoxious to others.
Level 1 Trolling!
There are certain real world rules of etiquette that seem to apply in Home. They are mainly unofficial rules, more guidelines than rules, that are still persistent obligations of good manners, which we should follow in the real world, but we don’t always.
As the unrelenting F13 error problem continued to knock us off (fortunately, this seems to have been rectified), I tried to follow the advice of many other users to try to get around the issue. One of the suggestions was to remove all furniture items from a space and leave it completely empty. While visiting a personal space, I had a friend request a visit and when he got there I had no furniture laid out. We spoke standing for a few minutes but it felt rude to not offer him a chair.
I placed one and he promptly used it. It seemed such an automatic response, and undoubtedly due to the conditioning of our upbringing, but it struck me as funny. He couldn’t possibly be tired of standing, and I think it is a pretty safe bet that the user behind the avatar was sitting in a comfortable chair or couch in the real world the whole time.
If the physics of the personal space decorations weren’t locked out to the avatars, except for the space owner, when he or she is in decoration mode, I don’t think we would have the control to avoid knocking things over all the time. Imagine if that were the case every time you visited a friend’s space or they visited yours. After all the time you spent decorating your space, and someone to no fault of their own or if they were being obnoxious purposely knocked over your decor, it would be downright irritating. It would be rude, and frustrating.
If instead of just bumping you out of the way, the collisions allowed an avatar to completely knock yours over every time they bumped into you…imagine how much that would be exploited by trolls, and how many glitches it would subsequently generate.
PERSONAL SPACE INVADERS: Dude can you back up a bit!
Our characters spawn from the same location in every public space, so unless you move immediately following your appearance you will be overlapping other avatars and end up in a freakish conglomeration of character ghosts to no fault of your own. Sometimes you can’t help walk through a group of avatars; this was a recurring issue in the Dolphy Races at Hudson Gate. People repeatedly crowded the entrance, and once a race was over there was a sudden spill of users exiting through the course gate. It is an issue now in x7 as you have to select the rope to go through it, and so many users for some reason enjoy crowding against the entrance, it makes it difficult to select the rope to hit the x button and be allowed entrance. Particularly when some troll stands on the other side taunting others who can’t get in.
Is it really rude? I suppose technically it isn’t as it is a make believe world, and this alternate universe is a mere representation of reality but we are interacting socially with REAL people behind these surrogates we control. Proper etiquette has been in dispute since we began communicating vicariously through technology, even more so now that we aren’t limited to a text chat box, but actually interact with each other with avatars that make the interaction seem a little closer to realism. That bears some thinking about how we conduct ourselves, and how we interact with others, so rather than seeing just an avatar, do as you would in the real world and show a little courtesy.
June 15th, 2012 by BONZO | 2 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Bang on Bonzo! It’s an oddity that we feel the need for personal space in Home, and I have wondered about it quite often. I USED to get shirty with people who got in my virtua-face but after a year of seeing trolls and their tricks, I’ve learned to tolerate it if and when it happens. Oddly though, I still don’t like it. I had to laugh when you mentioned your friend “needing” to sit down in a virtual environment, but to me that really says it all; in Home we have such a strong recognition of our projected selves that once we’ve been saturated in its environment for long enough, I think some of us almost feel like we’re there. Which explains why people sometimes object so vehemently to having someone’s face in their crotch! And maybe why I always stand in the casual position (weirdly it’s exactly how I carry myself when stood still), or feel the need to sit my avi down whenever I see a chair (again, a reflection of my own personal habits).
Really good read Bonzo, again! Keep it up mate.
Personal space is very important for me in the physical world. So it’s the same on Home. Thats among the first “unwritten rules” I will teach newcomer. To those who say it’s only pixels and electron I reply that it’s a simple question of respect. Just becaus you can do moething on Home you can’t in the physical world, does’nt mean you have too. As you mention there is exeption, where avatar collision are almost unavoidable. Once again grat article Gonzo. Something that really concern me.