Your avatar's form: is it 'you', or is it just like clothing?

I'm curious about how strongly people identify with their avatar's form.

Its like a piece of clothing, but i have a regular avatar which is like the clothes i feel comfiest in. If that makes any sense?

I change my avatar's hair style and color often, and also change skin style and skin color often, but I rarely change my avatar's shape aside from minor adjustments to fit a skin or shrink the butt and hips for a skirt. Even with the changes, my av's facial features closely resemble my own in RL, according to my husband.

I guess the shape is just kind of my own little personal trademark. Wide hips, plenty of booty, long and more 'pin-up' than the modern 'supermodel'.

More like clothing, though I do have a standard avatar that's vaguely based off me and that I identify with more. (Oddly enough, it's never been the avatar in my forum icon. The smiling east Asian lady to your left was done for a photoshoot.) However, I change skin, facial shape, and hair depending on what I'm wearing, and even have a donut and tiny dropbear-- I mean, koala avatar for kicks. I'd switch between body shapes, too, if a) I didn't really like my current shape and b) the sliders weren't a major pain in the butt.

This is pretty close to my feelings. I change frequently as the whim strikes. I tend to use the same av for meetings and such. More for the comfort of other people than myself, although I'm sure they all could care less.

Folders!

I have tons of them preset for on the fly alteration. You know, in case the fuzz is after me. Or I'm traipsing over to hang with the Elves. Or I'm headed into furry town. Or I just gotted Ruthed. Or I feel kinda robotic. Or for that goth scene. Etc, Etc.

I change my hairstyle and clothing often, but I never change my avatar's shape, and my skin stays the same unless I'm taking a special photo shoot. My avatar is like the "new and improved!" me. I just don't feel comfortable in anything else.

I wouldn't call my avatar a piece of clothing, so i went with "C."

My avatar is what I feel inside about me.

She is not me, but she is part of me.

She doesn't come close to looking like me, but she tends to be similar in appearance to other avies I create. Perhaps she is directing me from inside...who knows.

I'm with Lo on this one. It was a process that happened over time but I don't really feel comfortable in another shape. I used to have an avatar that was very different from my RL self but then I decided to shape it more like me. I love being able to change hair, clothing, etc but I doubt you'll ever see my avatar drastically different (unless you catch me in a robot avatar ) I also have kept the same sort of makeup for ages.

Okay...this is going to sound a little far out, but...I think of myself as sort of Squeedoo's "soul". She exists in one dimension (SL), while I exist in many dimensions (Internet and SL included).

It gets weirder from there.

I adjust the size of my crotch, depending on who is around.

I agree in part with Lucifer, my AV is more a creative or abstract extension of myself. I do most commonly wear a human form that is, well, basically what my physical RL body would be like if I did steroids for a year or two and had rhinoplasty, a more "idealized" version of myself I guess. I almost spent a good deal of time trying to make my AV a photorealistic duplicate of myself, and still might if I get the time and ambition to.

Edit > Oh! and in RL I have human-looking blue eyes. In SL my eyes are a picture of the planet earth.

Then again, I also "wear" my Space Ghost or Wolverine form, Daryth Kennedy's dragon/wyrm forms, ect... Or sometimes, on even rarer occasions, I'll change the clothing that my human form is wearing...

Realistically, I could change to a very wide variety of things on whim with no serious emotional attachment or consistency -- but I find that rather boring to myself. I tend to come up with personal restrictions trying to come up with a consistent theme. By keeping in mind these personal rules of what I can and cannot change, I think it better establishes an identity that others will recognize.

If I was to put on a troll avatar tomorrow keeping these sorts of rules in mind and with my usual accessories, my friends will not only recognize me, but would probably find it funny or play along with such a change. Torley's watermelon-themed My Little Pony av is a perfect example of something recognizable as Torley, though otherwise completely different.

Is this a personal identity to me? No. It's more like a 'character' I was having fun with. It falls between those two choices as something I've chosen to create through various means. It's neither a strong *personal* link nor is it a disposable, emotionless husk. I'd find it hard to believe that people have zero emotional attachment to their av. If someone was to shoot their av with a pushgun and blown 'em three sims away, their first response will likely be 'Hey, they shot *me*.' There's still a small bit of transference involved, even if unintentional.

On an even more fast and loose response, I'd also mention people have emotional attachments to some of their clothing. Their favorite blouse, a dress they wore just once, etc. People tend to form emotional links over all sorts of silly things.

I can probably guess what drama thread spawned this question, but I figured I'd answer more seriously and forget what likely brought this up.

I change to often to have a definitive answer, but the phoenix feels me-like. But then again, so does the dragon-me. :>

So it's a toss-up between this or that....

Chris Wilde is me. But my alt is rich and powerful and supports my drug habit.

To quote Popeye "I yam what I yam"

I use folders. It's the actual initial construction of the shape that would be the pain in the rear.

Well, second of all, the shooting is an action against you the gamer (or platformer, if you like) and you react no matter the virtual form of yourself that gets pushed. That's pretty nitpicky and I do understand what you're saying.

First of all, I would agree that I may not have absolute zero emotional attachment to my av, but it's more like an attachment to a pet rat that isn't really a pet, but that you see in the alley every day and wave "Hi!" to. I refer to GL in the third person for the most part. Maybe he's trying to escape from the ties that bind us I mean, I have no idea what he is up to at this moment. He is a slacker. I have to work.

Well your personal feelings towards an item or clothing that you buy so I'd say its you in a way ^^

I had the same avatar for nearly 18 months, then one day a friend dropped me a GAZ avatar to try on and when I went to put back on my normal avatar shape, it was missing, there were some strange inventory problems that week.

I was surprised how devastated I was. My avatar turned out to be more a part of me than I ever imagined it would/could/should be. Which is funny in a way because when I started in SL all I wanted was to be invisible, but I had never heard of an invisaprim back then.

And again I am faced with the dilemma of “self representation” in game because I have recently started to dabble in a themed sim where I feel compelled to get a new “shape” specifically for it, and I am again surprised to find myself so attached to my “normal” avatar. It feels a bit like I am cheating on a loved one.

So yes, for good or bad, my avatar is “me” and I strongly identify myself with its form.

I dunno, man, I find that rather amusing and cool you actually have that sort of compartmentalization where there's a Gabe and he's up to no good when you're not around. I've known others who thought of it that way. I understand what you're getting at and we at least agree there is some emotional attachment.

As someone mentioned about their inventory mishap revealing that they did indeed have emotions towards their work, I'd say you might feel a bit more if Gabe 'died'. Though we could also write this all off as frustration due to 'wasted work' instead of any sort of personification or anthropomorphism and thus attachment.

My main default avatar is one I definitely identify with, although it resembles the me in college more than the me today.

SL invades my dreams fairly often, and a lot of the time, I see myself in the dreams as my avatar rather than my human self. Anyone else remember bizarre "SL dreams"?

Regards,

-Flip

Well, it's even worse with the alts. I don't even know them really. They creep me out.

I have had to recreate GL on 2 occasions. I was more annoyed than anything but maybe because I was too busy working up GL 1.3 and GL 1.4.2 to notice the pain

All the time! Last one was me trying to figure out the scripting necessary to get my new incense 'scent' to run correctly. I woke up with BAAAD thoughts about that bush sign guy and the terror he could reign with the ability to pester people with odors as well as signs.