Matt Ellman
ENGL 3116
September 3, 2010
ENGL 3116
September 3, 2010
David Bell and Digital Representations
I’m not familiar with photoshop or dreamweaver, so I decided to go the simpler route and use the southarkstudios.com avatar creator. As hard as it is to create an accurate avatar from the “South Park” website, I tried to stay more true to what I look like and what I wear, as opposed to other avatars that let the users be whomever they choose to. A perfect example of this would be an avatar from World of Warcraft. However inaccurate or outlandish either of the representations are, David Bell would argue that they are still the users’ identities because of the cyberspace medium.
My avatar is of a similar age to me, having an adult body. With a lighter skin tone, and short, dark hair, I chose the option to make it look as much like me as I could. I even went so far as to adopt a similar style of clothing for the avatar. When I go out, I usually wear jeans, a button down shirt, and a sport coat, something my avatar and I share in common. As it is a close representation, I am able to post it on my blog giving the viewer an idea of what I look like, while still hiding behind the computer screen.
If I were to play World of Warcraft, and adopt an elf or wizard as my avatar, that would also be an accurate representation of myself too. Controlling the character in it’s simulated world, the avatar would have my personality, or at least a side of my personality. Because the avatar would be my customized character, doing what I choose, it would be a representation of me, however it looks.
Bell’s reasoning towards accepting both representations as viable is his idea of “identities”. He believes that online, you don’t communicate firsthand, and nobody actually knows your true identity, or if it is even you they are communicating with. Rather, when communicating via cyberspace, he believes that everyone has many different identities, that all work together. The “South Park” representation of myself would be one of my identities as well as the World of Warcraft representation, because nobody but myself is able to know what I actually look like or what I am actually like. This would work the same way for almost any other representation of myself on the internet. If I wanted one of my identities to be so, I could create an avatar of myself and put it online being nothing more than a picture of a banana.
I’m not familiar with photoshop or dreamweaver, so I decided to go the simpler route and use the southarkstudios.com avatar creator. As hard as it is to create an accurate avatar from the “South Park” website, I tried to stay more true to what I look like and what I wear, as opposed to other avatars that let the users be whomever they choose to. A perfect example of this would be an avatar from World of Warcraft. However inaccurate or outlandish either of the representations are, David Bell would argue that they are still the users’ identities because of the cyberspace medium.
My avatar is of a similar age to me, having an adult body. With a lighter skin tone, and short, dark hair, I chose the option to make it look as much like me as I could. I even went so far as to adopt a similar style of clothing for the avatar. When I go out, I usually wear jeans, a button down shirt, and a sport coat, something my avatar and I share in common. As it is a close representation, I am able to post it on my blog giving the viewer an idea of what I look like, while still hiding behind the computer screen.
If I were to play World of Warcraft, and adopt an elf or wizard as my avatar, that would also be an accurate representation of myself too. Controlling the character in it’s simulated world, the avatar would have my personality, or at least a side of my personality. Because the avatar would be my customized character, doing what I choose, it would be a representation of me, however it looks.
Bell’s reasoning towards accepting both representations as viable is his idea of “identities”. He believes that online, you don’t communicate firsthand, and nobody actually knows your true identity, or if it is even you they are communicating with. Rather, when communicating via cyberspace, he believes that everyone has many different identities, that all work together. The “South Park” representation of myself would be one of my identities as well as the World of Warcraft representation, because nobody but myself is able to know what I actually look like or what I am actually like. This would work the same way for almost any other representation of myself on the internet. If I wanted one of my identities to be so, I could create an avatar of myself and put it online being nothing more than a picture of a banana.
Supposed to be double spaced. Just didn't work when copied to the blog
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