Having never experienced online gaming like this before, I was totally in for a new experience. I chose to join the network and gaming society of Second Life and begin my hour’s worth of research. After the free registration process and an endless amount of downloads, I was able to begin creating my online persona. I chose to stick to who I am and develop a person of above average height and an athletic body. I chose this to see how people would respond to the person I truly am in an online world. As it came up in the game, I appear to have the “boy next door” look. This isn’t what I was really going for, but it was the closest to that of an athletic person.
Once I began to really take part in Second Life, I began to notice that I was able to make myself become accepted by the online society. Everyone that I talked to, male and female, enjoyed my company and gave me the feeling that they were being genuinely nice in responding positively. I didn’t spend too much time getting into deep conversations but definitely brought light onto the whole world on online chatting that I never knew. Being able to recall the point made by Yee & Bailenson’s in The Proteus Effect, I can say that people thought I would be of a popular, and free-spirited nature. They didn’t really take anything I said too seriously but I think they got the point I was trying to make. I spent time making sure that I didn’t conform to the general stereotype presented by my appearance and really expressed myself, through chat, as who I wanted the people to see me as.
I was able to define this scenario as The Proteus Effect because I wasn’t conforming to SIDE necessarily, just the persona that I was an athlete with little knowledge. I feel that I was able to portray myself this way and enjoyed my time within the online world.
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