Cross-Cultural Blog

This striking cultural and social phenomenon involves the projection of certain traits and personalities onto a virtual avatar. When players create this new identity for themselves, their personal views tend to get blown out of proportion. This hyperbole of action and thought is especially present in MMORPGs. But the affect of avatars doesn’t stop there; in essence, these identities serve as a cultural mirror, exposing certain social flaws and mentalities. In relation to avatars, the portrayal of female and male characters is especially telling. Thrust into the virtual social interactions of MMORPGs that are devoid of physical interactions, gamers inflate and exaggerate personalities and interpretations of these mental constructs, which have severe social ramifications on gender roles and stereotypes.

The first striking feature of avatars is their customizability. From hair, to body type, to species, to you name it, avatars provide players with the ultimate control in how they shape their character. However, gender of avatar in relation to the player seems to be the most contentious topic. Men generally exaggerate the features of female avatars. When role playing as female avatars, men tend to act “hyper feminine.” “Men tend to make nipples very large, [add] bigger hair, perfect makeup, more expensive skin, flimsier silks, [and have] sluttier language” (p. 39). These inflated female characters have been associated, in the gamer world at least, with men. Another stereotype people have is that most of these men are gay.

Additionally, there is a freedom in narrative that arises. “The avatar is their character, the system is their story environment, and the events that happen to the avatar are all steps along a narrative chosen by the driver of the avatar” (p. 23). An avatar draws literary parallels to the classic arc of character development. “Ultimately, avatars are about the advancement of personality within a kind of fiction that is both social and personal” (p. 23). What is forbidden or taboo in the real world can be expressed in the virtual. Avatars are often seen as masks, which makes over 75% of users feel safer speaking their mind when they use an avatar (p. 36). This exposes players thoughts and behaviors because they are more inclined to reveal themselves when interacting through avatars. There is too much importance placed on anonymity and distance that seems to warrant the disclosure of all of a player’s likes, dislikes, and thoughts. An intense emotional connection is established from this unprotected immersion into the virtual world. The illusion is that the avatar mask makes users feel like they are in complete control, which could inflate gender roles in game play. While a person might be more reserved about his/her thoughts on gender, in the world of MMORPGs, these thoughts get translated into real social interactions and behaviors, which is all too telling of how people perceive these stereotypes.

According to I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life, by Mark Stephen Meadows, an avatar is an interactive, social representation of a user. “Sociability is the air an avatar needs to breath” (p. 13). Without some time of social interaction, the avatar can’t exist. Sociability and interactivity are deeply connected concepts that work in synergy. Avatars are perpetually linked to certain social rituals that are built out of rules and roles (p. 44). These rituals are much more important in virtual worlds. “In a virtual world we don’t have some of the same degree of complexity or fidelity of the senses, [so] subtleties in human behavior are lost” (p. 45). The specific visual representation people choose for their virtual character is greatly influenced by his/her role in society. Although a game defines logistical boundaries of the avatar, the player determines “cultural sets of archetypes and rituals that the avatar lives” (p. 46). While an avatar can only be one of two genders, how the player perceives that gender and acts upon those preconceptions saturates the social interactivity of that avatar in the virtual world.