Grace played a show last night at Gwampa's spot (which I should have a lm for but am not in world, yadda yadda...insert lame excuse for poor blogging here). The place is beautiful and caters to tiny avatars. I had never been tiny before and with about 15 minutes to the start of the event I moseyed on over to the ever useful slexchange.com and suddenly....taaa daaahhhh....I iz raccoon. 
It was great fun to be tiny and the event was a total blast. At the same time I was haunted by this feeling of being slightly uncomfortable. Of course, being me, I had to ponder this. Why does putting on a different shape make me feel slightly off?
There is an entire post brewing in my mind about Sl, body type and self worth. In a world where we can achieve any standard of beauty why do we chose to present ourselves as we do? My thoughts are free floating at the moment but if you smell smoke its probably me overthinking.
There are tons of people talking about these issues in the blogosphere. The awesome Rosie Barthelmess has written about living as a larger person in SL for some time. The pro anorexia flickr group has inspired some to write about body issues in SL including Dot Lane. And, Marissa Ashkenaz wrote about a mini experiment she conducted where people wandered in SL in larger than average avatars with interesting results.
For now my thoughts perk and a post is being composed in my head, but I will say this -- mass media and the western standard of beauty can really fuck up a person's self worth. Some days it is better to be a cute tiny raccoon.
15 minutes ago
2 comments:
Yeah, there's a ton of fascinatin' thoughts to be thought here. How we present ourselves in SL reflects so much about us, since we have so many choices. (Although some choices, like "be just conventionally gorgeous" and "be a default AV" tell less than others.)
I don't think either of my usual grownup AVs are conventionally gorgeous, but they're better looking by conventional standards than my RL AV. :)
Choosing a really grotesque or ugly AV would be too easy to interpret as making a statement that I don't want to make. On the other hand designing a look that makes a positive aesthetic statement while still being creatively far from convention would take work!
I like the look of my Pandaren AV alot, but it uses up so many of the attachment points, and it's nomod, that I feel like I'm just wearing a costume designed by someone else; so while it does reflect me in the "I chose to wear this particular costume" sense, that's not very many bits of information comparatively.
I have a shiny-sphere AV that I made awhile back, and I've worn it a few times. It's funny, though; it seems to feel depressing most of the time. Because I can't really interact with people physically? (No dancing, no hugging, not even sitting-next-to really, having no bottom to sit upon.) Not sure. The one time I enjoyed it most was when I gave a copy to someone else and we "danced" together. :)
There's certainly a lot of different perspectives out there on size, shape, etc., in SL.
I generally think everyone's avie should be exactly what makes them the most comfortable and how they take the most enjoyment out of it. I've complained about some prims in my day or been spoken to in less-than-constructive ways, but it didn't hamper my experience enough to change my avie to something else.
In SL, if you present yourself to me as an average size male neko, or a 8' tall floating seahorse, or a 1.5' tall silver ferret, that's what you are to me. I guess I've learned to take those kinds of expressive output at face value, even if it's on a temporary basis. A friend shows up as a flying book or a wedge of cheese? He's still the guy behind the wedge of cheese.
But, one thing I did used to get a lot - A LOT - when I started out, was, "Why would you want to be fat in SL when you could be anything, here?"
I think it's interesting that some people think conforming to *their* standard of beauty is what's important, and not any standard of appearance that makes the individual the most comfortable.
After being in SL for a year with a bunch of really beautiful plus-size avies making their own positive contributions, along with changing where I was hanging out, I haven't had nearly the confusion or negative comments that I did when I first started, though.
Post a Comment