Second Life as topic for a cultural study

I'm a 3rd year student Fashion Design and Communication in the Nederlands. A few weeks ago I created an avatar on Second Life as part of a cultural study. I would like to discuss a few issues and I hope that I could get some feedback!

First, I'm investigating online gender-bending. Some people create avatars of the opposite sex, so, men create female avatars and women create male avatars. Why would people do this? Are there other gender experiments, like forming an avatar who is still human, but is neither male nor female. Where in Second Life can I find examples?

Second, I would like to know if in Second Life people also tend to organize themselves in subcultures, just like in real life. How do they manifestate themselves, and where in Second Life can I find them?

Virtual worlds just as Second Life are very new and very interesting phenomenon for studying identity politics and social behaviour. I would really like to get some feedback from Second Life players!

x

Anne,

First of all this sort of question belongs on the "Resident Answers" forum.

Both questions you've asked are very large. As far as the gender-related question, you could find a lot of material by using this forum's Advanced Search. Under "Search by key word" type the word "gender" (without quotes) and change the drop-down choice to "Search titles only". At the bottom, under "Show results as" select "Threads".

Also, you need to know that we get asked many questions by students, marketing people, academics, and others. At times it is relentless, and many residents of SL are quite negative about being viewed as lab rats.

I'm not saying that you're doing this, but some things that can minimize negative feedback for you are:

1 - make it clear that you are a resident of SL and that you spend time inworld. If you only created the SL account so that you could ask this question, you are sure to come under fire.

2 - change the word "subculture" to "culture"

3 - don't be surprised if people react negatively to your request for information. Try to keep a sense of humor, and don't be afraid to defend yourself.

4 - make it clear that you are not asking us to do your work for you.

Good luck with your research!

Many reasons... Some that I've encountered... pure fantasy roleplaying (what would it be like to be the opposite gender?), to explore RL transgender feelings, sociopathic tendencies (I believe some sociopaths gender-switch to better mess with their targets), and less commonly I believe are business reasons (in some lines of business it is perceived that a particular gender has an advantage).



I'm sure there are (you can find just about anything in SL), but I'm not sure where you would find them. Maybe do a search for "androgyny" or "androgynous" in-world.



This sounds like you are looking for the "groups" feature. In world, go to the search button and then choose groups. You might want to contact the owners of any groups before sending messages to the whole group, as that would probably be interpreted as spam.



As Seven said, this endeavor might present some difficulties. Best of luck.

Do you have a specific reason to restrict this to human avatars?

One caution: It would be a mistake to take stats or info on gender/species and extrapolate from it a desire on the part of a lot of folks in RL to *BE* a different gender or species.

Playing a gender, race or species in SL other than one's RL identity is, for many, a fairly light-hearted choice. Maybe they like seeing themselves as their totem animal, maybe it was just an impulse one day and they liked it, maybe a white person always wanted to try being black or vice versa, maybe they think a different gender/species will get them acceptance in their business or play. You can change genders in one click of a mouse, so many folks don't give it a lot of thought on any one day. All my avatars, for example, have both male and female shapes and clothes, although they all have a preferred gender.

Theres all kinds of gender bending, im sure that there are places where there are people who dont have a sex just people... I say this because there are people who play both sexes. Such as an avi hat has both parts. But its not only restricted to human avis there are robots, furries, dragons even. If your a new comer coming into sl to explore the gender issues in SL its best to use search type in the word that describes the ppls your searching your normally find a place where those kind of people can go as for the sub cultures there are many of those in sl, such as vampires and so on... what you describe as a sub culture is kinda stretched in sl defined as diffrent people like what i stated vampires, theres nekos and furrys also robots people who play angels theres really no limit to what you can do on sl. However, as you are doing this culture study becareful not to get yourself addicted or your be stuck here with the rest of us

But if you do get addicted....welcome to the dark side!
WE HAVE COOKEHS