Your Second Selves: Avatar Designs and Identity Play in a Teen ...
Source: www.gseis.ucla.edu
Topic: Teen Fashion
Sort Desciption: design and identity play within a large-scale teen virtual. world called Whyville.net with .... and created fashion guides about the adequacy of looks. For ...
Content Inside: Situated Play Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference 2007 Authors & Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is allowed commercial use requires specific permission from the author. Your Second Selves: Avatar Designs and Identity Play in a Teen Virtual World Yasmin B. Kafai Deborah A. Fields & Melissa Cook University of California Los Angeles 2331 Moore Hall 951521 Los Angeles CA 90095-1521 kafai@gseis.ucla.edu stareyes@gmail.com cook.ucla.@gmail.com ABSTRACT Avatars in online games and worlds are seen as players key representations in interactions with others. It is surprising then that this aspect of game play has not received much attention in research in particular what concerns player- generated avatars. In this paper we investigate the avatar design and identity play within a large-scale teen virtual world called Whyville.net with more than 1.5 million registered players ages 8-16. One unique feature of Whyville is the players ability to customize ones avatar with various face parts and accessories all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the expressive resources available for avatar construction individual teen players choices and rationales in creating their avatars and online postings about avatar design in the community at large. With the growing interest in player- generated content for online worlds such as Second Life our discussion will address the role of avatars in identity play and self-representation as well as the social issues that arise within the game world. Author Keywords Avatars identity participatory culture situated play INTRODUCTION More than 20 years ago Sherry Turkle 20 wrote the influential book The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit that introduced the idea that computers were not just tools for work but also for exploration of oneself. In her follow-up publication Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the ...
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