On my long ass ride into work today (woe is me!) I was listening to NPR and heard about an exhibit traveling around the world called Alter Ego. It shows pictures of the real person and their characters in various MMOs along with a description of the person and how they feel about their avatar.
It was very interesting and I’d visit the Exhibit if it comes to you, listen to the interview on NPR linked above or at the very least check out the pictures.
The whole thing got me thinking my characters in MMOs… You know how I pick characters in WoW, for instance? Whatever is cool looking, starts in the lands I like and is a dwarf. :P I love the dwarves. But in CoH? I pick hot females. Why? Because the guys are ugly, retarded looking and I’d rather stare at a fine girls butt in tights than a beefy guys butt in tights. In LOTR? I picked a dwarf, of course. In Everquest? Well, a dwarf sucked since I couldn’t be a Druid, the ultimate everyman class in EQ.
I share all of that to exercise a point. I don’t pick based on creating an alter ego for myself. I’m not looking to create another identity or expand my social skills… I just want to play a game and be good at that game. But that’s apparently not how many people play the game.
So my question becomes, how does this work for other people? Do they create characters like Becky in that NPR interview, to get some respect she doesn’t feel she gets in her ever day life? Do people go into MMOs with the idea of recreating themselves? Playing different personalities?
This leads to the other part of the NPR story.
“A sociologist at MIT, Sherry Turkle, described these environments as laboratories for the construction of identity, says Spaight. “In the virtual world you can be anything you want to be … construct a persona that is wildly different from your real world self.”
I know some jackasses out there like to create weird personalities to troll / fuck with people, but aren’t most of us just looking to play the game?
I know power gamers don’t give a shit about this sort of thing, often picking one class/race over another to get tiny stat gains. So that cuts out a big portion of MMO players. So the rest of us…are our characters saying something about us we aren’t realizing? Like maybe I’ve always wanted to be a dwarf with an ass kicking ax? Maybe I should visit SL and see if I can’t get some therapy. Some sexual therapy. :P
Of course, we all know if you see a girl a in an MMO, it’s a guy. Duh.
What Would Matt Do: I think I’m going to start LOTR up for real here soon. Maybe. Maybe I’ll just wait for Conan/Warhammer.
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