I can't help it — I wish I were my avatar

More real than reality
No wonder people are so gaga for avatars. The power!

But it’s not so much about playing god as it is about connecting with people and expressing yourself, says Philip Rosedale, a man who knows a thing or two about avatars.

Rosedale is the founder of “Second Life,” an alternate world that exists only online. In this place, millions of real-world people have created virtual versions of themselves that they use to explore a vast virtual land and to socialize with each other. 

“We used computers to make ourselves more alone for the first 20 years of their meaningful existence,” Rosedale says. But now that we live in a networked world, he says, people are driven to use technology to connect.

Whitten agrees. “When you look at what’s happened in entertainment and on the Internet, it’s about moving from my relationship with a piece of technology to my relationship with other people as expressed through this piece of technology,” he says.

And that’s where avatars come in.

Xbox Live is a service that allows gamers to connect with each other via the Internet so they can play games, chat and compare scores. And once people connect in this way, Whitten says, “they’re hungry to identify who they are.”

I’ll say. As a child, playing with dolls and dressing them up seemed like a pointless exercise to me. And yet, I have spent at least an hour crafting each of my game console avatars, carefully selecting every facial feature and every item of clothing in an attempt to represent myself as accurately as possible. I find it utterly absorbing.

Sony When Sony launches "Home," PlayStation 3 owners will have a chance to create highly detailed avatars. But creating a doppleganger in your likeness is harder than it sounds, especially when you have a vast array of options at your finger tips. Despite my best efforts, I'm not so sure my "Home" avatar — pictured here — actually looks like me.

I also find that playing god with myself is harder than I thought it would be. When presented with vast opportunities to mold my image – especially in the case of the “Home” avatar – the choices were downright daunting.  Do my eyes look like this? Or this? Do these cheeks really capture who I am? Does this chin say “Winda”?

And who is this avatar any way? I mean, is this really supposed to be me? After all, she’s nothing but some prettied-up ones and zeros. Surely I add up to more than that.

Rosedale believes that, in some ways, she’s more me than, well, me.

He points out that the real world is filled with avatars – people who have carefully crafted their persona using their clothes, hairstyle and makeup. Some even use plastic surgery to carve themselves into the image they desire.

“We are creatures of our own imaginations,” Rosedale says. “We each want to project a certain identity in the world around us. In the real world we do that in a lot of ways – the clothes we wear and also in the places we choose to live. We make choices about the art we hang on our walls. We make all kinds of choices in the world that, when presented to other people, say something about who we are.”

And so Rosedale believes digital avatars can be an even more realistic representation of who we are because, in creating them, we aren’t limited to the clothes hanging in our closet or the coif we’re able to tease our hair into or the nose genetics dealt us. Unconstrained by the cold hard realities of a physical world, we can make our digital avatars into our truest vision of ourselves.

Sure, some people argue that digital worlds are full of people masquerading as someone they’re not. But Rosedale insists that just isn’t the case. “If you enable people to modify themselves more, they tend to project more of their real personality,” he says.

It’s enough to inspire an existential crisis, but I do see what he means. After all, that person I see in the mirror – I’m not always sure she’s really me either.

In fact, when there’s not a mirror to reflect the harsher realities of my physical attributes, I imagine myself with flawless hair and skin. In my mind, I am short – but perfectly proportioned. My nose is prominent but in a statuesque way. My blue eyes are clear and bright, with nary a fine line. And the clothes I wear – they hang on me with a stylish perfection.

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