Nav writes in Scrawled in Wax about a question that frequently exercises sociologists and psychologists studying us in Second Life, and has probably puzzled a number of plain Residents, too. With the ability to become anyone and anything you can imagine when you live on the Grid, just what is it that motivates a person to design an avatar as they do? Not only do most people on the Grid exhibit a mind-blowing (and truly unreal) sexual gorgeousness, but you can also be a girl when you’re a boy, a boy when you’re a girl (apparently less often), a vampire, a half-cat, foxes and dogs and trolls and hobbits and elves and dragons and…. Well, you obviously know what I mean.
Nav’s main point: it’s entirely likely that there’s something more than simple roleplay in many cases. There must be a reason why a person chooses to cover themselves in scales, or festoon their electronic bodies with pendulous (ahem) equipment, or whatever. On the surface, the argument seems rather Freudian; but that doesn’t disqualify it from being valid and worthy of consideration.
Thanks for the link!
Heh. I have been reading Freud lately… but I was trying to figure out why that might weaken the argument? I mean, I understand the numerous critiques of Freud, but the basic principles – the tension between id, ego and superego etc, identity formation – haven’t really changed much have they?
I guess my main point that perhaps I didn’t come right out and say is that this is about repression – not is a negative sense, but that we are *all* forced to repress something and online identities are way of dealing with/circumventing/sublimating that which is repressed.
Apologies on that; I wrote the piece a little hurriedly, I’m afraid, and could have been clearer.
Freud does have his critics, especially in his concept of the sexual desire root of much of human behavior (1). I lean more toward the Jungian concept of the archetype myself. However, in some areas he did get it right. I agree with you that the shaping of our avatars is a reflection of what is inside us, and that some of that could be repressed desires of some form or other. Avatar creation is a “safe,” socially acceptable way of expressing those repressions, and many probably do so — the chance to go a little wild, to try out a different gender role or dress differently, etc.
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(1) I myself, despite many discussions with My SO, do not see the Washington Monument or the Empire State Building as gigantic phallic symbols (grin) To borrow from Freud himself — at least by attribution and legend — “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”