Sherry Turkle: “by enabling people to experience what it feels like to be the opposite gender or to have no gender at all, the practice encourages reflection on the way ideas about gender shape our expectations” (77).
I really didn’t think about making my avatar look different until after I had finished creating it. I realized that I had made an avatar that looked like me, but I didn’t have to do that. It was my instinct to create a female avatar with brown hair and blue eyes. The idea of creating a male avatar never came to me. I wasn’t really familiar with the game, so I guess I just wanted to feel comfortable using my avatar to learn the basics. If I would have created a male avatar, I probably would have made the “male version” of myself.
It would be interesting to create a male avatar now that I know more about the game. I don’t think that I would purposely act differently while using a male avatar, but there would probably be a difference between the actions of my female avatar and the actions of the male.
Same with me, Danielle. When creating an avatar, I wanted one that looked like me, because can you really imagine being someone other than yourself? I don’t think I could. I guess it just comes natural to both of us to represent ourselves when asked to do so, unless we are told to go a different route. It would be interesting to see how your interactions would be different( or if they stayed the same) if you became that “male version” of yourself in the world of Second Life.