A Second Life not worth living

Having played only a couple of video games throughout my life, I decided to chose the suggested Second Life. After downloading a billion files, I finally was able to log on. I began by choosing an avatar. I wanted to make my avatar as similar to me as possible, so naturally I became a pimp. Walking around with a solid, muscular build, I felt quite confident that I would be the talk of the cyber world. Unlike real life, I was wrong… no one paid attention. I briefly talked to this one girl, but quickly found that I am incredibly socially awkward in online gaming. Finally, I reached a clothing store with a few women and my luck changed. I began talking to a girl looking for lingerie and it was going well- until another avatar dressed exactly like me came and I was told to go have fun with my twin. Instead of walking around bored for the next hour, I decided to change my avatar to a girl. Looking through the various clothing options, I chose to go completely naked. That way no one would accuse me of being someone’s twin. As a naked woman, I was quite short, rather plump and incredibly un-endowed in the torso region. After playing around with the different commands for a bit, I became more accustomed to the game. As a result, I found out how to teleport and decided to visit a local strip joint. Unfortunately, my experience was not great. I was told to put some clothes on and was humiliated in front of my fellow Second Life members. After enough harassment, I left the game.

My experience with Second Life greatly relates to Yee & Bailenson’s research on The Proteus Effect. The Proteus Effect occurs when users in online environments conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatar. As a tall pimp, I walked around very confident and had no fear in talking with women, thus conforming to a pimp’s stereotype and confirming Yee & Bailenson’s third hypothesis in which taller avatars behave more confidently and aggressively than shorter avatars. As a nude, unattractive and short woman, I again conformed to the stereotype in which the shorter the avatar, the less confidence. In addition, I admittedly felt a little weird being the only nude avatar my first time playing the game.

As I was unaware of Second Life’s goal throughout my playing time, I am unable to confirm Yee & Bailenson’s first hypothesis, which states “participants in the attractive condition walk closer to the confederate than the participants in the unattractive condition”. Nevertheless, if my confederates were the people around me, I can confirm the hypothesis, as I tended to linger around people more as the attractive pimp than the overweight naked woman. Lastly, I can certainly confirm hypothesis two, as I (the pimp) gave more personal details to those I spoke with than as the nude woman (in which I really did not talk at all).

In my hour of game play, more emphasis was placed on individual identity cues than conformity to group norms (SIDE). It seemed as if every avatar in the game played more as an individual than as a group member. Consequently, my experience was very similar to The Proteus Effect.