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Brandon Lesko's Race Switch Project

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on November 4, 2008 at 5:12:45 pm
 

Brandon

Brandon's Blog Page 

Brandon Lesko's Race Switch Project

 

 Second Life allows for individuals to essentially recreate themselves to look like anything imaginable ranging from an exact replica of their real life self to having elf ears, fur or arms as long as a gorilla. Originally my avatar VinceGold Rexen was of medium height and muscular build with dark brown hair in somewhat a somewhat messy style. My avatar was also caucasian like myself, in order to replicate as much of myself as I could. For this project I decided to make myself an African American, since I had seen relatively few African American avatars in SL that it would be the best means of starting a conversation. I chose the basic stock African American avatar from the library folder and chose that to be my new self. I was not really sure what to expect with regards on how I was treated based on a different skin color, as I do not usually speak with others. However as I moved to various areas and spoke to other avatars I realized that at there were times when I was treated differently although it was rather implicit and then in other instances other avatars were more than helpful to me. 

    The first place that I decided to go seemed natural enough, it was the one place where I had seen the most amount of traffic and that was Milky9. I had seen all sorts of people, animals and everything in between in Milky9. I normally don't make conversation with other avatars unless I know them so this took some courage for me to do. I approached a group of other avatars on the bottom floor who were having a conversation about different types of jeans in SL. Since I had no clue how to initiate conversation I just waited until I saw a natural break and said that I was new to Second Life and what were some good places to go for free items. Roughly ten seconds went by and I saw that one of the avatars was typing and I assumed that it was to me. After those ten seconds, the avatar's response was just a continuance in the conversation that they were engaged in. Below is the picture that I took with the avatars in Milky9. 

In this picture there are three other avatars that promptly ignored me, even though they saw that I was trying to communicate with them. It is hard to say with certainty however, whether I was being ignored because the group did not know me, they do not respond on the general chat, talk to noobs or because of my skin color. 

     At this point I felt it was time to go to one of the Welcome Areas. I searched for the one with the most traffic and it was actually run by Linden Labs. As soon as I teleported there, I saw that the area was a hub of avatars. Different avatars shopping, flying, jumping and conversing. So I tried the same approach that I had applied earlier and slowly walked towards a group of avatars. This time however, I noticed that one of the surnames was Linden, indicating that they were an employee of Linden Labs. After waiting for the group to finish talking, I introduced myself and said that I was new to SL and was wondering what places were good for a noob to go and become familiarized with the Second Life world. At first I thought that I was going to be ignored but a member of the group (though unfortunately not a Linden) responded and gave me a few suggestions. Although it was only a few basic places that I had heard of including Milky9. After this conversation, it was good to know that I was not being ignored or outright rejected but that I was not being treated differently than I had been. Below is a picture of myself and the other avatars at the Ahern Welcome Area. 

 After leaving the welcome area, my third location was another freebie store, because at this point I felt that it would be the best place to strike up a conversation with anyone. I travelled to the freebie store that was across the street from the Nike Store, as it was the first one other than Milky9 or Sarha Nerd's Freebie Store. As soon as I stepped in I noticed that a woman appeared to be talking to teddy bears. As I took a look around, I realized that it was not actually a freebie store, but a store that sold skins in the shape of cartoon animals. I struck up a conversation with one of the teddy bears and told them that I was new to SL. ( I will leave the names private because I do not have explicit permission from any of the avatars to publish their names in the public domain). After I told them that I was new to SL, they were more than generous with advice, money and even friendship. I also told them that I was a student that was doing research on gender, race and identity in SL. They told me many stories of how at first they were ignored by other residents or had even outright insulting things said to them. When asked for other locations to go I was given many areas, however they said that I should consider mainly freebie stores and noob areas for the first few months of being a resident so that I could relate with the other members and we could gain experience off of each other if i made any connections with any of them. Below is the picture of my avatar conversing with one of the human avatars after they had transformed from being a teddy bear. 

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