How was playing an AV of another race?

Well, I'm bi-racial and I tend to make my avie look that way as well. Now she probably looks more latina than anything else, but then again, that is often what I am mistaken for in RL anyway.

I made a white, very fair redheaded alt and had a lot of fun with her. I love redheads.

I've never had any response to my appearance other than compliments. I think my dark hair and eyes, plus darker than usual skin makes me look a bit different than most avies and that is fine with me, heh.

It's odd but I really like the idea of making a japanese alt but I would feel somehow uncomfortable knowing there are many rl japanese people playing SL, so I havent. Strange, eh?

Why should it? How one looks doesn't determine one's culture. Someone ethnically Japanese but who grew up in the US is, to all intents and purposes, American. There's no law against looking Japanese and speaking English with a mid-western accent.

I agree with Daisy. Furthermore, if you want to look Japanese, I'm certain RL Japanese would accept it as a compliment, not an insult and probably would encourage them to socialise even, if you wished to.
It's what SL is all about - be what you want to be

First let me say this is a good topic and everyone is handling it well.

I am black in rl and my main AV looks a lot like me, I think. Even when I play WoW, I tend to make my characters skin brownish. But I have other AV's that I have played with. I like to think I work out my past lives this way. Unless you go around doing things offensive to a particular race, then you should be all right.

And on a kind of related tangent, I always thought the one thing Star Trek got wrong was that there would be such distinctness of races in the future. I think we will all blend more and more and a person with a dinstinct brogue and corresponding skin tones would be the exception rather than the rule. One of the coolest things I love to see as a black American is a black from the UK with that oh so cute British accent.

For the longest time my primary av was a fair-skinned redhead. (Like Io said, I love redheads. ) A few months ago on a whim I switched to a very dark-skinned look, and I love it.



I've gotten a lot of compliments on this look. Even better, I've never gotten a single negative remark. That's a good sign, I think. It's not without its disadvantages -- finding things that look good with this skin is much more difficult. I enjoy the challenge, though!

My avatar is rarely the same species two hours running. Many of my bodies are reminiscent of different human races, and I have bodies of multiple races of the same species. I'm usually mammalian, but occasionally reptilian or amphibian, and sometimes bionic or completely synthetic.

My human alt has been caucasian, negroid, hispanic, australoid, oriental, a melnibonean albino, elfin and vampire pale, and elfin and brown as a berry... not to mention solid black, shiny silver, fleshless and skeletal, tesselated in a pastel grid, translucently spectral, and made of rusty clockwork.

Concerns about race and gender seem... confining.

Totally agree, in a world where you can be anything, why be human? All comes down to preference.

Yay! Great responses guys...I wondered if anyone besides me would find the race issue of interest.

Someone said the issue of race is confining....so why discuss it?
I just think that for some people, like myself, their race becomes such a part of their personality they can never ignore it, or seperate themselves from it. Same way you can't take salt out a cooked stew. I think race impacts personality because people are formed, in part, by how others react to them. Strangers or friends or loved ones. And again, I think race still exists and is significant, in rl and sl.

One of the things you can do in SL is to try on another personality. If you became another *species*, how would race apply there? Does it matter if you're a six foot rabbit whether you have brown or grey fur? What does that actually mean, as an analog of race?

In the movie The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat species was an analog of race. In the comic book Maus this gets turned completely around: species is an analog of ethnicity... jews are mice, germans are cats, americans are dogs (perhaps appropriate, for a country that prides itself on mongrel heritage )... and there were both black and white american "dogs".

*is a Dragon through and through*

Though I occasionally take on a bipedal form, it is still an anthropomorphic Dragon, except in one case, where I have a slave form of a Dark Elf who thought he could get away with stealing from my hoard. I possess his form now and then when the fancy strikes me, but he's otherwise "in the closet".

I also take on an energy form at times, shedding all flesh and substance of the world, which is actually a wonderful feeling of freedom.

Being Archaean, and a Shaper, I can of course clad myself with any raiment I choose, but there's just no denying my nature.

As for feelings about other races/species; you all look like dinner to me.

Interesting question. In Germany, we are very reluctant to call another ethnicity a different race. It's almost viewed as an insult. We separate it like this:

- Cats and dogs = different species
- A carthusian cat and a persian cat = different races of one species (not only external variation but also a different built and skeletal structure)
- Two carthusian cats with different fur and/or skin color = equivalent to human ethnicity

The Wikipedia says: According to the german Wikipedia, the correct anthropological term is neither race nor ethnicity (the latter meaning rather a cultural difference), but "typological categories". Coloquial, we would simply say skin color. Just as much of a difference as hair or eye color.

Hence my surprised reaction to see the human race divided in different races. I was astonished to find out that "race" really is the right colloquial english word to refer to skin color. Well, I can see that "How was playing an AV of another typological category" makes a somewhat awkward thread title

I play an indian woman as well as a white guy who looks like me. The indian woman was difficult, even making my own skin. There are some ways you just can't morph the secondlife avatar face. The nose in particular can't be moved up and down vertically on your face.

As for why? it was fun to make the avatar. Plus I've always rather liked the Indian skin tones and facial features. It's just an aesthetic choice. The accent too but that's not really related to my avatar .

Uh, I don't know how that even entered into it. I was born and raised and live in NYC. This is the capital of immigrants from every corner of the globe as well as many generations of americans from every ethnicity. You don't have to explain anything about that to me, that wasn't even close to my point, it doesnt have to do with being an american.

I think it's less about whether I would be taken as japanese american or not (obviously I would once I started talking) and more a feeling that your SL avie is almost a costume, unless it is in fact an approximate representation of yourself. No one really thinks I'm a dragon or a robot in RL. But the idea of "playing japanese" or whatever, like it's a costume makes me kind of uncomforatable. It's not like putting on a dragon avie. But then it starts to seem that way which is why it doesn't feel right to me, like someone else's race is a.... well a costume.

But that is just me. I don't wear a male avie for the same reason, I feel like I'm misrepresenting myself to everyone else, lol.

I'm also going to throw a potential bomb out there and stipulate that white people are probably more comfortable trying on other races than others. Yes, race is "confining", unless you are the dominant race in your culture. When you aren't, you tend to be more sensitive about your race and how you appear to others. Because your culture makes you very aware of it, as a minority.