Gendered Avatar in Second Life: One Woman’s Journey from First Life to Second Life

• In Event: Trajectories of gendered identities in Web 2.0

Abstract

When we are given the chance to have a second life online, we often choose to be ourselves sometimes with a little something extra, for example, younger looking skin or taller figure. Other times we choose a slightly different direction in terms of race and/or gender. This paper explores the construction of a Second Life avatar’s identity in terms of race and gender. Second Life is a growing 3D cyber location inhabited by avatars, who participate in interactions on a daily basis. In Second Life, users can embody a virtual body similar to or different from their non-virtual body. Avatars are created by people who sit behind the computer and possess their own set of lived experiences, identities, characteristics, and beliefs. This work describes several avatar’s journeys on Second Life focusing on the intersections of offline and online materializations of race and gender identities. In creating a second self, how do power imbalances based on gender and ethnicity within global space shape the experiences of the creator? What social and communicative issues emerge through the Second Life existences? These are some of the important questions the communication scholars need to focus when studying technology-mediated communication. In my ethnographic work, I examine the steps an individual takes after an avatar becomes a resident on Second Life in order to respond to these questions. After living on Second Life for over a year, I have accumulated experiences of visiting and exploring hundreds of islands and making Second Life friends. I write about my journey and analyze my narrative using the frameworks suggested by Lisa Nakamura’s Digitizing Race and Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet, as well as Tom Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life. Through this journey of avatar construction, I argue that the identity creation in Second Life is a creative reconstruction of one's identity offline.

Author

• Samara Anarbaeva, Bowling Green State Univ