10: Second, Third, and Fourth Life

This was my second time entering the realm of Second Life for the purposes of a Comm 245 blog. Thankfully, I haven't developed PIU and I only log in to do research.

Already having dealt with the trauma that is the tutorial, I quickly moved to an open field with some people milling about talking mostly about sex, not surprisingly. I remember from articles I've read most of the people on Second LIfe (hereafter to be referred to as SL) are sexual outcasts or researchers studying sexual outcasts. I was still wearing my half woman / half fox outfit from my last experimental outing and was already getting invitations to yiff . Already out of my comfort zone I changed my avatar back into a girl-next-door attitude. I had already learned from last time that as a male I wasn't going to be approached by many. Some relatively normal looking people began to talk to me asking some basic questions about what my interests were. I chatted back, and the discourse slowly moved to flirty. I was reminded of the chat room experience I had earlier this semester. The difference this time around was I got to watch myself flirt back as a female. This really helped me act/speak more effeminately and really work the girl-next-door role. This is a textbook example of Yee and Bailson's Proteus Effect. This effect is when a person is when a person acts in line with the expectations of their character. Because I looked like an outgoing, attractive female, it was much easier to pretend to be one than when I was in a strictly chat based environment.

I than decided to experiment. I changed my avatar to a taller, more muscular woman. Yee would predict that the people I were interacting with would be more likely to take a subservient role, compared to my leader-ish character. Unfortunately, conversation came to a brief halt after my make-over. The men and women with whom I'd been chatting almost immediately seemed disinterested in me. This came as a shock to me. In a space like SL, where your appearance is a conventional signal (low cost, easy to change) you would think that it holds less weight, because anyone can change their appearance quickly, drastically, and easily. To my surprise, in this space where appearance is so wishy-washy, it means a great deal. So this matched the findings of Yee, as in their study less attractive avatars were treated with less friendliness.

I than played the other card, a skinny, but busy woman wearing rather revealing clothes. Now on my fourth life, I was ready for some really friendly interactions. And boy did people come through. All sorts of players took a vested interest in me. In fact, many went as far as to give me outfits to try on. Now, I'm not totally familiar with the economics of linden dollars, but apparently these items have monetary value. Just based on my appearance, people were willing to give me items of value, just so they could see me try them on. Each gift I received was more objectifying and sexual than the one before it, and even as a guy was pretty disgusted with peoples overt sexual motives. Frighteningly enough, however, I played along. In retrospect, I feel like a total creeper. Either way, because of my sexual appearance, I was much more comfortable acting like a sexual object. My own, uncharacteristic actions convinced me that the Proteus effect is quite real.

I commented at:
Hayleigh Hotshot Meets Second-Life
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