Examining Gender, Race, and Body Image in a Virtual world

For this assignment we preformed a gender/ race experiment in the virtual world of second life. At first I did not change my avatar character at all. However this lead to people calling me out for not changing my avatar. These people were concerned that I would not "fit in" or become integrated if  I didn't customize my avatar. they were very concerned with my clothes and appearance. The people were very helpful, a person sent me an appearance that i should be wearing and as soon as I changed into a more customized female avatar, I was complimented on my looks. Then when I ventured into worlds with my new female avatar people, especially other girl avatars were rude to me and still criticized my unoriginal name

Then I changed into a male avatar. While I was a male avatar I did not receive as much  harassment or attention about my avatar from other people. I had an easier time having conversations with people. While I was this avatar I spoke with  good amount of people and I think they felt less intimidated by me, like I was more approachable. People were friendly and often started the chats with me. One person even wanted me to help them learn English!

Then I changed my avatar again, this time I turned into a female of color. While I was this avatar I still had an easier time communicating with other people. Although I usually had to start the conversations with them. Other than that it was a pretty similar experience.