Gender Bender
This is the MEEZ I create for myself. This is obviously the complete opposite of what I am, which is that I am a male not a female. I played around with the different aspects of MEEZ and I feel that I have created something that is the polar opposite of what I am. I felt that picking a woman, spiky blue hair, blue jeans which I hardly ever wear, and Anarchy in the background pretty much went with creating and a character that is not like me and in fact the opposite. I had fun creating this character and I really hadn't known anything about MEEZ characters.
As for the readings and the questions, the articles really do mirror some of my own experiences online. I noticed when I created a male character in Second Life I really didn't get as much attention as all of the female characters did online. Turkle had a good point in the article about this, "not only was I approched less frequently, talking about having a male character, but I found it easier to respond to an unwanted overture..." (Turkle, 211).
To me, playing with identity so easily means that you can be whoever you want to be online. It's really easy to even switch genders if you wanted to. All you really need to do is just change your name to a female or male name. Turkle says, "we can easily move through multiple identities, and we can embrace-or be trapped by-cyberspace as a way of life," (Turkle, 231). I agree with this statement because moving through different identities is easy just by making up a fake bio of yourself and also chatting and talking online differently than you normaly would. I also think that people can get trapped in this virtual cyberspace because some people just get hooked and then cyberspace becomes their norm. "Another effect of simulation...makes the fake seem more compelling than the real," (Turkle, 237). I think this sums up how people interact with the fake online people and get involved in it and then believe that it's real.
I believe that this ability to change identities and even genders influence us to act differently and also respond differently in digital spaces because it's so easy to do. If you are talking with someone online who says they are 5'6" blonde hair blue eyes, 100lbs, at first you think, wow that's perfect. Then after you talk to them for a while and they send you a picture of themselves and they are male, 56, 6'3",. 340lbs, you feel let down. It's just easy to make up your own identity and go with it.
I generally don't go on to chat rooms at all or have time to be apart of any virtual worlds where you make your own avatars and such, but I really don't believe about 80-90% of the people online. There's just too many people out there trying to be someone there not.