Evolution

A friend recently commented that I have changed my look a lot since he has known me, insisting that I must have changed my skin. I've definitely changed my hair, and I've tweaked my shape a bit, but the skin is pretty much the same. While I don't have pics of my earliest days in SL anymore, I came across a couple of older images and had a look at the evolution of my avatar.

Once I realized it might be nice to have a picture of myself in my profile, I went in search of a scenic location. The SL Botanical Garden fit the bill. This was taken in early July 2007, one month after my rez day. The skin is Charmed, from Celestial Studios; hair is Melissa from Calico Creations, and the eyes were from Soda.

Eventually I managed to make my eyes look a bit more realistic thanks to Miriel's realistic eyes and some appearance slider magic.

The hair here is Amber II from Calico Creations, and it has been a standby in my hair folder for quite a while. The other one I've relied on a lot is Zero Style's Mike.
I still have a long pointy face here, though. It took me a while to realize that the shorter hairstyles I coveted looked funny because I had made my face too long.

Once I figured out a more flattering face shape, I was ecstatic when I stumbled upon this delicious little style from Kin, called Yohkoh.
From the display I was afraid it might be too orange; finding the right shades of reds and auburns in SL has been a bit daunting. Fortunately, I am often able to add a touch of gray to tone down an overly bright hair color. You couldn't pry this one off my head until I found.....

....Poynter, by Armidi. I did have to move a few strands in place over my right eye, but this really feels like my look these days. I showed the demo to a friend before I bought it--never hurts to have a second opinion--and was encouraged by his favorable reaction.
Of course, these last two hairstyles have shown up all over the various fashion blogs, and I usually prefer to not look like I'm following the latest trends. But when something works, you just have to go for it.
I'm glad I found a skin with freckles, too. The strange thing is that Roisin has evolved to look even more like the RL me (minus 20 years) than I ever intended.

Are Your Eyes Really That Blue?

Recent conversations with friends, and the questions Kit posits here, have me doing more thinking about identity in SL and how it relates to RL. It isn’t a new topic in the SL blogosphere, but since my comment on Kit’s blog nearly turned into a post of its own before I applied my editor’s pencil, I thought I’d bring it over here and expand on it a bit.

Usually I’m not too interested in someone’s RL A/S/L except as it informs our activities together in SL. Age is *almost* a non-issue regardless, although having similar frames of cultural reference is nice, and sometimes I’ve run into emotional maturity issues. Gender is likewise almost irrelevant unless my avatar is becoming intimately involved (and I’ll talk about that in another post, since I have more thoughts about SL romance that need their own entry). Location doesn’t have to be specific, but knowing what time zone someone is in lets me know that I can’t reasonably expect my SL buddies to stay up with me if it’s 2 a.m. in their RL world.

As for other RL information, with few exceptions I’d rather identifying details stay under wraps. While I’m intrigued by avatar/person comparison pictures, I don’t need to see them, don’t want them from my friends, and don’t want to share mine any more than I already have. I’ve used voice but would rather not.

I’ll admit that as a friendship grows deeper, I get curious. In a few cases, I’ve met the atomic person behind the avatar, and those friendships are now in RL as well as in SL. I will eventually know the RL identity of one close SL friend because his RL work will become public. I both dread and look forward to that day. I don’t think it will change our SL relationship, since knowing some other SL pals in RL hasn’t changed our SL relationships; but I still find the impending breach of that firewall a little daunting.

More difficult for me is how my alts deal with RL information. As Roisin, I am essentially a prettier, younger, more outgoing version of my RL self. When I say *I* did something, I may well be talking about RL. But my alts, especially when talking with people who know Ro as well, have to be more dissociated from their typist. They are more purely roleplay, and can’t have the same background as Ro without losing their distinct personas. They have to refer to the typist in the third person whenever possible, even though this makes conversation a bit awkward. Unfortunately, the dissociation (and my inability to manufacture more than a rudimentary backstory for them) also makes them less well-rounded as people.

Some of my friends as Roisin have trouble seeing the alts as separate personas, even though the alts exhibit somewhat different personalities and really don’t look like Ro. They feel that they’re talking directly to the typist through Ro in the first place, so they speak right through the alts to the typist as well. Other pals are better at seeing a separate persona come through the alt even though they know the same typist is there. It doesn’t necessarily mean I—or they—need medication and intensive psychotherapy; it’s just another way to express different aspects of my typist’s personality, just as in RL we might have different personas we present at work, as parents, as children, as siblings….and so on.

I don't normally do these things, but once in a while it's good for a giggle. This one's pretty accurate, and didn't even take long to complete--which is a good thing, because I have other goofing off I need to do!

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Love Me, Love My Alt?

For those women who liken being in SL to playing with virtual Barbies, it may interest you to know that I play with not one, but two Barbies. Yes, I have an alt (technically I have two, but only one really gets much attention and the other one lies on the closet floor with her polyester hair all tangled). While lots of people in SL have alts, for a variety of reasons, they are sometimes regarded with well-founded suspicion.

Originally, Island Girl was created to work; I had ideas about creating and selling something in SL, and as Roisin I was mainly a social creature. Being able to build things in SL requires concentration and solitude, and I have a nice list of friends who want to include me in such fun as impromptu parties on open hillsides. Island Girl wouldn’t have friends; she would go in world to create undisturbed.

Of course, the aesthete in me couldn’t just leave her in a default avatar, so I made her pretty; mostly I tried to find quality freebies, but I spent a few Lindens on good hair and shoes. I did let a few friends know I was making an alt, but I tried not to reveal her name. I did mention to a friend—I’ll call him Tech—that she is partly Polynesian, though—and his ears perked up. We had talked of working together; he would build and script, and I—or she—would write the instructions. I told him her name, and let him add her as a friend.

Fast forward a couple of months. I no longer see either Sparky or Jet; and in one case, that can be blamed on an alt, a man who created at least two avis in order to catch his RL wife cheating. Hence the aforementioned suspicion—the idea that the newbie you just met may have a typist you’ve talked to through another avi gives many of us the creeps and warrants a good bit of caution. You really never know who you’re talking to.

Given that discomfort, I do have a rule: my alts are not allowed to interact with people who know Ro, except with those who have been informed that they’re talking to my alt. I am, generally, more comfortable in the skin of Roisin. Ro looks somewhat like my typist and has established a life in SL. What RL information I reveal as Ro is my truth; Ro’s personal history is the same as that of her typist.

It turns out that as Ro, I’ve actually been able to do some work, selling my RL photos as framed prints in SL. I decided to explore a little as Island Girl, though, just for fun, on some days when most of my friends weren’t in world. Tech saw Island Girl online and began chatting with her. Slowly, Tech and IG have started to spend more time together. She has begun to accumulate the trappings of a social creature: ball gowns, more hairstyles, jewelry.

As both Ro and Island Girl, I find myself exploring concepts of identity. One of my friends referred to Island Girl as Ro in a Hawaiian Halloween costume. I have to disagree; I feel like a different person when I travel in SL as Island Girl. We speak of each other in the third person; she has even been known to make snarky comments about me. Tech knows he’s talking to the same typist, but he understands the role play and treats each avi as a separate person.

Of course, even Ro, as established a persona as she is, can only be a partial projection of her typist’s personality. Island Girl brings out yet another side of her typist, but she needs a personal history that differs from mine; her ethnicity alone (Hawaiian/Japanese/Mexican/Irish) necessitates a different background. As Ro settles into working on projects and maintaining established friendships in SL, does Island Girl now become the more social personality? And how does she maintain the separation from Ro as she grows into her new self?

It’s an interesting exploration.

Just Following the Crowd For a Moment

Well, that's a relief.

There really is another post brewing...

Soft Day

Fog settles low
enfolding the rawness
of newly formed wounds

The branches of autumn trees,
laid bare
exposed
and braving the season’s new chill
Leaves yellow, crumple,
fall to the ground,
wetly melt into the earth.

A soft day,
until the sun pushes through
a burning glare
stripping away the blankets,
here to heal
to reveal some possible truth
to keep the slashed hillside from staying
mired in the fog

© 2007 Roisin Hotaling

(Inspired by events in SL, and by a RL trip to the coast to process them)

The Big Reveal

You choose a name. It might be similar to your real name, or it might not. You create an avatar. He or she might look a lot like your real self, or might not. You begin to make friends in SL, people whose real names you don’t know. Unless you’re completely immersed in role play, you probably tell them a lot about your real life: your family, your work, where you live. Eventually you might tell them your real first name.

If you are trying to keep your real identity under wraps you may think just providing your first name is safe; but if you’ve provided enough other information, it may not be too difficult for a resourceful person to find you in cyberspace. Adam gave me his real name, email address, and website address quite readily. As a woman, I was more cautious—or so I thought. Adam knew my city, and what I do in RL. After I told him my real first name, I realized that he might have everything he needed to find me in RL. I did a quick search with Google using my first name, what I design, and my city: lo and behold, there I was.

Sparky did something similar. He told me his first name. He had also posted a link to a website in his SL profile. On that website is an email link to contact the webmaster—whose first name is the same one Sparky gave me. He verified that I had found him; we had developed some trust by then, so it wasn’t a problem. But just knowing his name and city allowed me to find quite a few references to his work, and—the most unnerving of all—his home address and phone number.

There are myriad other ways you might provide enough personal data to reveal your RL identity. It didn’t even cross my mind, when I emailed my friend Jet a document written in Word, that the file info for that document had my real name in it—because when you set up those programs on your computer, they ask for that information and add it to every file you create, unless you make sure that setting is turned off. Never mind that Roisin has an email account separate from her typist, set up to protect her identity; the attached document gave me away.

Of course, those are accidental reveals; but you might want to exchange RL information with an SL friend deliberately. At what point do you make that decision? How much in-world chatting is enough to feel safe telling someone your real name? And then do you take the SL-to-RL crossover to phone numbers, MySpace, business websites, exchanging photos of your RL self, webcams, even meeting in RL?

Since I try to keep a membrane between SL and RL, I don’t intentionally give out RL info too readily. Oh, sure, there’s a photo of my RL self in my SL house, but to me that’s fairly harmless. And with Sparky and Jet, I have an understanding that any personal information we have shared or discovered is strictly to satisfy our curiosity; our friendships remain confined to SL and MSN. While we can use MSN to hear each other’s voices or see each other via webcam, we do so sparingly.

That’s not to say that I’ve never become RL friends with someone I met online; I met one of my closest RL friends in an online birding chat room some 14 years ago. And if I found myself in the towns where some of my SL friends live, we might meet at a RL coffee house. But I have no travel plans.