What is your AV to you?

I'm far less shy on SL, often i feel more myself than in RL.. its my little safe hideout.. a place to experiment. My avatar helps me a lot to become less shy in RL.. I love beeing here^^

my AV looks about the same.. pretty average.. but I dress i ways i would never dare in RL!
my clothes fit better too! ^^

Well to me my AV is a high tech version of the barbie dolls I use to love as a little girl in the medium i love as an adult...most the time. I decorate her apartment and dress her and walk her around. Some times she is something I admire, sometimes she is a part of me that others admire. When someone says my AV is hot (yeah it happens) i feel good, because I put together the right elements to make her look good. I do refer to my AV as 'her'. She is the puppet and I am the puppeteer.

Aw heck, another 4 page thread? Re-reading the question I gather you mean the entity, not just the cosmetics Lilliana?

Well, they are all me .. all four of them, in the flesh or under the flesh. They're all in there somewhere.

The appearances? just smoke and glitter.

My AV is my Hood Ornament

My av is an extension of my personality - one who gives full rein to my desire to learn new things and be creative. In appearance she is me aged about 22, but a bit taller and with longer legs (Sl can make vain wishes come true!)

My Avatar Graphicguru Gustav is an extension of my real self, only augmented. Being an artist in real life, my AI is also an artist. Because of my AVI, I am beginning to come out of my shell in RL, and discovering things about myself, things that I never knew.
I see my AVI developing into a pirate who plyes the vacuum of space in his antiquated pirate ship adapted for space travel. It looks like I will be creating my own ship in sculptie to upload into SL. be prepared for a way out and fanciful ship, with the coolest capitain at the helm.

Agreed. Of course, how you craft your avatar's appearance (if one puts any time into it at all - some obviously don't) comes from within you as well.

Like many here, my main avi is an idealized version of the younger me--at least in appearance. I identify most strongly with my main avi (Roisin), whose personality is mostly me, if considerably more outgoing.

My alt, who looks nothing like me, is dating one of my main avi's friends, and he knows she's my alt. I think I project a slightly different personality through my alt--she's both sweeter and snarkier, and she's much less of a fashionista.

Why do you want to know?

Am I the only one who finds this a strange question?

I'm a relative noob, and my avie is still evolving. But basically she's just what I would be if I were a little younger and a little trimmer.

Oh, and blue.

What an interesting question...

I have two AV's, both younger and better-looking than me in RL, LOL. With both though, I find I bring myself into SL with them. I'm definitely less shy one-on-one in SL, but JUST as shy in a larger group. In RL, I tend to listen a lot at parties, and find the same thing in SL.

When I created my Alt, I thought she would have a different personality than my main. Did not happen though. She has a different circle of friends, but is mostly the same personality as Maitri....

What that means i hve no idea...

because (as OP stated) they were curious of the comparison to their own views?

and, 'probably not' to the second question, just maybe one of the few vocal ones

In summary...our Avi is everything we were, everything we are not and everything we wish(hope) to be..

Teeny was created for the sole purpose of trying out SL beta. Teeny was supposed to appear for a few minutes, be completely unimpressed with SL, and be deleted later. Somehow, this expendable character took on a life of her own, and still lives four years later.

My AV is the me that is more "me" than me. (^_^) And I agree. (^_^)y

OK, I backread
An interesting point Ceera but it spurs in me, a question, what is 'me'? my imagination, my sentiment, my conscience, my guilt, my dreams?

Just thinking back to other threads touching on behaviour etc, isn't everything we do in SL a component of 'me'? My ambitions, my confusion, my fears may all be reduced in SL by the relative protection of anonymity but also the comfort of familiar surroundings. This encourages some to be more outgoing, more adventurous, more flirtatious.Very interesting to note the two posters who say their avatars are more shy than their real selves.

The cosmetics, the younger '21' look, the digital boob job, the longer hair, the more daring clothes? Well .. because we can but every selection, every decision from the moment you touch that first slider is down to 'me'. Vanity or fantasy? I'll admit it, I'm probably more vain than imaginative.

I think we all ask ourselves this OP question possibly again and again. It's good to compare notes I think. Why am I sharing with complete strangers my inner thoughts? SecondLife has taught me to stop hiding them I guess.

Sandy said it earlier; I love the psychology of SecondLife ... and I get far too much free time (before anyone else says it!)

She's like me.. but she's not as pretty and less promiscuous. Also we spend more time living her life than living mine .

I totally agree. I think this is a really interesting thread. Though the thinking has made my head hurt

He's just some guy. I don't know how he got my telephone number though.

I am an avatar, I exist in SL. My RL is just an agent that looks after my interests and gives me things to do. There is also an alt but that's nothing to do with me it's just a dumb testbot.

I, Conifer, speak on here because we come here using our SL names. If we used RL names, then RL would probably speak on here and I'd sit by the pool sipping fruit juice.

We could coin the terms:

Embeddists - people who let their avatar have it's own life
Rellists - people who openly come into SL as their RL selves

Not only is the queation interesting - so are the answers!

So many people here have described their Av as a "better them"; I'm amazed there aren't more people talking about having an Av which is a third party under their control, with the possible exception of the chap who said his av looked like a partner of his... lots of people I meet are using the av more as a voodoo puppet than an extension of their characters.

In my case, my av looks an awful lot like me in my 30's; I wasn't that fit in my 20's so my "peak time" was around 35-37. I even picked the rather stubbly, authenic skin to go along with that period, having found out several weird things about SL and myself:

1) It seems that being interested in changing your shape or appearance is something you are supposed to do away from prying eyes, and have over and done with by tthe time you appear in public

2) When being just conversational, I have an almost magnetic affinity for my RL appearance (minus about 10 kilos!); even though a friend started on a series of adapted shapes for me, I don't use them: some very low level part of me, wants me to stay me, until or unless an RP scenario gets under way

3) the shape-shifting thing is for some people, completely casual- which for me raises all kinds of confusion: if their Av is to them (as someone said here) "a hood ornament" then boy oh boy do they have a bunch of hood ornaments! Other people react with thrill or horror or both, as soon as the whole thing comes up or starts...

On a tangential note, I'd LOVE a "phone booth" I could temporarily rez, then dash inside, for quick-changes. Anyone seen one?

i'm hotter in RL. my av is just a money-maker.

Essentially, like for most people, my avatar is a monkey that I like to make dance for my amusement.

A nice concept, but perhaps we can come up with better words. "Embeddists" in particular sounds too much like "In beddists" to suit me.

How about, "Alters" and "Samers"? SLants and Reelies?

Oh, all right.
/me sits down and joins you for fruit juice.
We'll let Alyx tackle the job.

Perre, that's BRILLIANT. Simply brilliant. It says everything, and nothing, in a deceptively simple sentence.

/me whips out notebook and copies down pithy comment for later use in publication.