Unfortunately if I am trolling someone, my information is usually not discussed or compromised, but if I've known you for a while or I am comfortable around you... or you've hit on me, I am certain my gender was discussed one way or another. And I was in a long conversation with someone yesterday who has been wanting to 'get to know me better'. And mind you, this was on my female alt. He has no idea I parade around on Secondlife in a male avatar.
I'm not sure I see the big deal in it anyway. Unless I was a heartless bitch leading on other women with my manly charms, I really have no need to be a female in Secondlife if I don't have to be. Most of my online user names, characters and avatars are all 99.9% male, with the exception of alternate accounts I have made just to dress up (or try to dress up) a female avatar. I was reading this really funny book in the library called Alter Ego by Robbie Cooper, which purpose is to give reflection on people and their everyday online avatars in MMOs to get a glimpse of why or what they are doing online.
If you're too lazy to drop a dollar on the book - You can check out this blog post here to see the people and their avatars. It's really something!
There was a girl mentioned (no page numbers in this book unfortunately), Rebecca, who played City of Heroes. It was interesting, her character was a dude and as I was reading about her little snippet of character choice and even gender choice I laughed, because I related all too well.
"My avatar in City of Heros is my complete opposite. (avatar name) is big, black and male. I created him that way because I didn't want to get hit on all the time. I wanted to be noticed for my skills, not my pixel-boobs."
It's interesting because part of the reason I started using a male avatar on Secondlife is because I really, didn't want to get hit on. I started out on a female base, gathered up some noobie clothes and dressed myself up. As soon as I was somewhat presentable, hanging around in Hanja and Secondlife being so new to me (as I was completely clueless), I had started to get hit on, lead on, asked 'out'. Most of the intentions of these individuals whom asked me was for pixel sex, back when Zindra was not around and about four sims to the right of the Hanja Welcome Center was a major sex club.
Hah, the only reason I know THAT, is because I was bored one evening, and with nobody in Hanja, I did what probably a lot of new players did at the time: Clicked on the map, zoomed out to find the most green dots which represented people, and teleported in. I was a bit flabbergasted by it at first, but I take things lightly, and I sometimes have a yearn to make people upset, so teleporting into a bunch of people saying erotic things over mic, I HAD to turn my mic on and start grunting like a gorilla and walking over to everyone, noob humping them (you know, when you don't have an AO, and press the PgeDown key over and over..?) until I was kicked out.
Another large reason for my male avatar(s) is for the eyecandy. Seeming as a large percentage of males on secondlife do not know how to dress themselves, I like to make something pleasant to look at while I'm online, if that sounds reasonable. I'd rather be staring at a sexy male avatar which I have created to my tastes, with physical attributes I find pleasant to look at, than staring at a female avatar which is just a representation of myself. I can look in the mirror in my room for that if I wanted. If I am going to be spending linden dollars on clothing, I'm going to put it toward good use and make something sexy I can look at as I wander around, and something everyone else can enjoy.
As for my gaming experiences online, I related to Rebecca's as well:
"I found that people treated me differently. Being a guy enabled me to form relationships that I would never otherwise be able to experience. They guys just assume I'm a guy. If I'm the leader, I can make a call and they'll all just follow. And they'll open up about problems with their girlfriends and so on."I loved these few sentences because it describes my interaction with people I have met on the Steam network, and while playing games like Call of Duty or Left for Dead. I'm not about to brag at my awesome skills, though I have been playing first-person shooters and video games in general since I was very young. It is difficult being a girl and playing video games sometimes when there are so many 'gamer guys' that outweigh the female population of gaming. I am seeing an expanding amount of girls who play games. But it's still that stigma of BEING a girl and playing a game which gives us (women) the most trouble.
"When I play as a female character, I get challenged a lot more and have to argue about everything. No thanks. I've made some good friends playing as a guy. To this day they don't know I'm really a chick. I don't lie about it, They just assume that I'm a guy and never ask."This statement by rebecca is 100% me. I think if I was interviewed to be in this book I would say the same exact thing verbatum. Yesterday I was discussing the fact that I don't normally tell people I am female unless necessary. I almost used the exact same two sentences in that quote above. ' I don't lie to people, they just assume, and never ask.' I'm glad I am not the only one with this problem. Unfortunately people need to realize that everything said and done in Secondlife or any virtual world is not going to be true, or 'right'. People are not on Secondlife to please you, but to please themselves! If that means lying about their gender, age, race, occupation, whatever, pleases them and lets them comfortably live out their Secondlife happily, then so be it. Many new players as well as older ones are just finding out that people lie. People lie all the time, it just hurts a lot more in the virtual world than it does in reality. I still haven't really thought about why I think that, either. Maybe for another entry.
Anyway,
It was funny, flipping through the rest of that book, a few of the Lindens were in there, Philip and Cory, their real life pictures as well as their avatar pictures. This book was printed in 2007 which is pretty interesting. Everyone's Secondlife avatars in the entire book (there were at least ten or twelve) were noobalicious! It's amazing to see how far avatars have come and the quality and detail now put into them concerning graphics, available clothing and skins, and woah. Looking through that book was a bit eerie.
Until next time.
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