Ethnicity & Avatars

Let's make a game of it. Everyone look back as far as you can and find a old thread to respond to. The oldest revived thread wins. Your response has to be On-Topic to qualify.


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A lot of the good ones got locked though.

I do agree that more (accurate!) ethnic avatars on the grid would be a good thing, but there's only one race playing SL...human.

QFT. Everyone can be whatever they want to be, so whatever works for you. I was in Shiny Things yesterday and I saw a girl who was stunningly well put together, Blond, blue eyes, gorgeous shape and skin and dressed a perfect mix of style without looking trendy. I wanted to ask her where she got her skin, I opened her profile and it said. "Live Japan. No English Speak"
Her World, Her Imagination.

And neko

I wear black skin, indian skin, pale irish.... I think it is very possible most people do not wear a ethnic skin other than their own because of they are afraid people will assume that is thie actual ethnic flavor and if find out otherwise judge them as a poser or trying to fool people..
I know of a few male avatars that wear black or afro american skins but are in fact white. I know a few white avatars that are black. I think it gives you an oppertunity to see how others in the world are treated, and I have found if you wear something other than a white skin, people will ignore you... I can walk a mile in their virtual boots and I see things I would not normally see...

I notice this as well that there is not enough ethnic flavor to go along.. OR if they do wear another skin, the shape is NOT close to what makes them unique in their ethnic flavor... For instance.. Traits that are part of the flavor of choice. These are not stero types just what makes them unique.

My black avatar is not a beyonce or hailey barry (sp) type she has junk in her trunk and headlights to spare. I molded her by a lovely friend of mine who is the most fantastic social butterfly I ever saw.... I could make a model type chocolate beauty, but I like her with some meat.. and I think she looks hot. ; )

There are people on SL just like real life who judge and are racist, and Ive seen it first hand... so I imagine a lot of people stay away from their true skin because of this..

Also, SL is the medium you CAN be other than what you are, and if you want to be a white starlett or model wtf its your choice no matter what your true flavor is.


I also state in my profile I do use other ethnic skins, and if I am asked I tell folks I am white.. I wonder what the percentage of each ethnic varities use SL?

And I do not include fantasy avatars in this comment.. They are in a class of their own.

To further this: I really would love for SL to get hte avatar meshy thingy doodad right so I can make my nose on tarina a bit larger, I myself do not have a petite nose but I gotta wear it smaller on Sl because of the HORRIBLE shadows.

Tarina in her white hair and "my name" skin is very close to what I am in rl... But i've always wanted a smaller nose and my chin is a bit pointy.. so i can give myself a virtual facelift cause no way in hell Im going to let some Dr hack my face in rl. (talk to me again in 10 years I might change my mind)

And if one more blonde bimbo tells me I need a different color hair to go along with my tanned skin cause white just doesn't look good I'm going to cyber punch them in the mouth. Your flexi hair is eating your face biotch!

I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear this, but my typist doesn't actually have kitty parts in RL.

M

/me considers a comment, then decides not to make it and wanders off.

I didn't say she didn't have 'kitty.'

What kind?

Tabby. Both of them.

E-gads

I sort of wondered about that myself and I've run across quite a few new folks (being a mentor, it happens) who simply didn't know how to create the ethnic look they wanted. I've helped people with their avatars and I found I have a talent for creating more ethnic looking female shapes. The faces are the challenge.....I've seen plenty of beautiful Asian and afro-american skins out there. But....the limitations of our shape editing makes it really hard to create features that accurately portray any ethnic background. We have to work with certain boundaries and I get the feeling some folks just can't be bothered with fine tuning....since SL is all about being whatever the heck we want anyway. *shrug*

For myself....I'm about as white bread as it gets IRL blond blue eyed and to me that's utterly boring....so I've got some great avatars that I'll use from time to time depending on my mood. Right now my avatar has a very Latin look......when I created her I started by wearing a sort of coffee colored skin and she came out so cool. But...if I change the skin to something more fair.....she looks pretty white bread because it's just really difficult to enhance facial features when working with other people's skin interpretations.

I love studying faces.....and with-in any race of people there are soooo many beautiful variations that we cannot possibly duplicate in SL. The asymetry of the human form, the minute flaws we all have.....the quirks and unusual blending of features.....all that is utterly lost in the SL avatars. So....my guess would be that there's a good percentage of folks out there in cyber world who are not as interested in portraying an accurate ethnic look....as they are in other activities with-in the network. So be it.

The real problem is the lack of true color skins... the violets, the purples, the lavenders, the blues. There are a good number of red and green, but all the other colors are sooo hard to find!

Nomine?

Its a good question and no reason to be hostile to the person raising it. There are black people playing in SL. We were all " born" white, which seemed funny and weird to me. But once we get here we try to build an avatar that reflects who we are. That can be difficult because its hard to find skin that seems appropriate. There are no newbie free skins for women that I could find that are really brown. There's a couple for men but for women custom skin is going to be necessary.
And quiet as it is kept, middle class black people do have computers and many enjoy gaming even if its not in SL. They may be more likely to drop out in the early stages if they cannot find a good community that seems welcoming. That's my two cents, which still doesn't amount to much even in Linden$.
Fatima

Panjen too.

Sin Skins has (had?) some too, but they have scales or something on the limbs.

And you know, you're right. Why can't we get some of these merchants who make dark skins to donate one of each gender as freebies, and we can put a box together for some of the larger freebie shops?

good luck
hair is another issue..

What about Eloh's?

http://eloheliot.blogspot.com/2008/02/ff-psds.html

Hehheh ... a recent sweetheart of the darker persuasion let me in on "the secret of black women hair" ... seems I've been fooled for decades!

I have most all of Panjen's and Nomine's color skins.. still, need more shades, more makeup... well.. just more

And a good rainbow skin with decent makeup would be perfect also!

Actually, I have an alt who needs a really, really nice male blue skin. But that's neither here nor there.

One reason you probably see a disproportionally large number of lighter skins is that harder skins are just a heck of a lot harder to make, especially given the awful lighting system in Second Life. Shading and highlight is just simply easier on a moderately light skin. Making a skin for a Second Life avatar is hard enough, that many skin designers may shy away from skin tones that are tougher to work with. Of the dark skins I've seen, very few have looked good, because the highlighting and shading just weren't done well. When I see a dark skin that does look good, though, I recognize it as truly good work, because I appreciate how hard it is to do.