Self 2.0: Internet Users
Put a Best Face Forward
Web
Chatters Upgrade Their Identities for Virtual Life
Washington Post, November
22, 2005
ByYuki Noguchid
Jeff Maynard has created
an online alter ego, Klepto.
Klepto is slightly trimmer but otherwise looks and
dresses like Maynard. He races cars and attends black-tie
weddings. Despite a recent falling out, he still hangs
with a crowd that includes friends from England and
New Zealand.
Klepto is Maynard's avatar, a character designed to
be Maynard's lifelike stand-in when he's online. He
speaks to other people's avatars only when Maynard types,
and he moves only when Maynard commands him to.
"It doesn't feel any different to me; it's just
an extension of me in real life," the 35-year-old
Arlington resident said of expressing himself through
Klepto.
People spend more of their lives online -- the average
American Internet user spends 80 hours a month online
at work and 30 hours at home, according to Nielsen-NetRatings
-- and Web-based interactions are evolving to look less
like word-based messaging and more like facsimiles of
physical existence. Tens of millions of Internet users
have online doppelgangers they design to act as their
proxy online -- communicating, shopping and socializing
on their behalf and expressing themselves through humanoid
gestures, voices and facial expressions.
People meet and develop real relationships through
their avatars, speaking to one another through instant-messaging
systems, expressing joy by making their characters dance
and expressing love by instructing their avatars to
kiss. Some meet, date and even marry solely online --
without ever expecting to meet their mate in person.
In the virtual world, cartoon-like avatars appear with
their screen names above their heads. Avatars breathe
on their own but can be instructed to walk, run, sit
or turn. As they encounter other avatars, they talk
through messages that appear in bubbles above their
heads, shaking their head when the user types "no"
and laughing when he or she types "lol" (laugh
out loud).
They usually reflect their real-life counterpart's
personality, while keeping the real identity -- and
appearance -- hidden. Sometimes that serves as a mask
for deception or to distort reality; teenagers, for
example, sometimes create avatars to explore different
parts of their personality. But more often, as is the
case with Maynard, users say that avatars help build
greater closeness and trust online and that the avatars
hew closely to the users' actual personalities.
Users invest in them, literally, spending real money
in exchange for fake currency that allows them to clothe,
house and accessorize their avatars. Eventually, experts
say, avatars may become the primary way computer users
recognize one another online, whether they are using
instant messaging or surfing the Web.
"People become attached to their online identity.
They care about being consistent so that people can
trust them," said Ralph Schroeder, a research fellow
at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University
who studies the sociology of online behavior. "This
issue of trust comes up again and again."
'It's a very community feeling'
Richard Hallock, 39, is an avid fan of There.com, a
Web site that offers a virtual world where he can socialize
through his avatar with other people, including his
wife's avatar.
"It's a little easier to trust people in There.
It's a very community feeling," said Hallock, who
in real life teaches middle and elementary school and
lives in Pollock Pines, Calif. He said he's seen people
use avatars for many types of communal functions, including
joining an online autism support group. Hallock shares
his virtual car with other avatars when he's not using
it. He even plans to release a feature-length movie
he shot entirely in There.
Avatar, a concept from Hindu mythology that means "the
incarnation of a god," is an age-old concept that
entered computer lingo in the 1960s but only recently
has become a mass-cultural phenomenon. Now, 90 percent
of America Online instant messengers use some form of
avatar -- either a static image or a more advanced,
3-D "super buddy" that moves, laughs, shouts
or talks in response to what's being typed in the message
systems.
Yahoo Inc., which has a monthly audience of 7 million
on its avatar-creation site, cuts deals with brands
such as Adidas, Jeep and French Connection UK to allow
avatars to use their products online. Companies such
as New York-based Oddcast Inc. are designing software
that enables businesses to set up marketing programs
with avatars that talk to the customer.
With better technology and higher Internet speeds,
it's now easier to create and convey nuanced expressions
and body language, humanizing more social and business
interactions and allowing a greater range of expression
of real-world desires.
"People in social virtual worlds create idealized
versions of themselves," said Betsy Book, editor
of Virtual Worlds Review, which tracks 28 Web sites,
such as Habbo Hotel and There, where people go largely
to socialize through their avatars. "You'll be
a little thinner, a little more fabulous. You definitely
want to put your best virtual face forward."
Robert Balaban, 13, designed an avatar on ESPN.com
that looks like a British soccer star with fluorescent
blond hair and hipster glasses who speaks in a digitized
baritone far deeper than his real voice. Balaban records
his opinion about the Redskins, and they are vocalized
online by his avatar.
"I don't think many people care about listening
to a teenager's opinion," Balaban said, by way
of explaining the slight fictional license. Others posting
comments front as other people, too, the Bethesda seventh-grader
said. "Most of them had a blue Afro with yellow
skin."
In other cases, art impersonates life in a disturbing
way.
Owings Mills resident Janet Weisenfreund discovered
an avatar with huge maroon lips wearing giant purple
sunglasses and bohemian-style loose clothing named after
her on ESPN.com.
"I certainly consider it an invasion of my privacy,"
said Weisenfreund, a middle school teacher who said
she did not create the avatar and describes her real
style as "Talbots classical."
Over time, avatars may follow their creators around
on different programs, such as a name tag that pops
up on instant messages, on Web logs and even when doing
shopping searches, interfacing with other shoppers.
"It's part of a range of personalization tools
we're building at Yahoo," said David Kopp, director
of community applications for the company. It's technically
and creatively challenging to create a richer library
of subtle expressions and moods such as sarcasm or nervousness,
he said, but that's what users want. No matter what
kind of interaction it is, having more complex expression
makes it a much more personal experience for people,
he said.
Book, who has "an avatar in every world,"
said there is irony in the impulse. "We finally
have this medium which is disembodied and free of the
physical, and here we are busily trying to re-create
ourselves."
Examples of Avatars on the Web
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