Tags
avatar, body, models, movie stars, second life, self-image, shapes, skinny, weight
First, can we all agree that a random sampling of Second Life avatars will usually give us a skinnier crop of people than a random sampling of First Life women? I admire those women who do their best to echo their First Life, heavier shapes with Second Life tools that are sometimes not entirely up to the task, but there aren’t many of them, so this entry is about the rest of us.
From left to right, Torrid Midnight, me, and Moran Singh, who writes a blog called Dilettanteville |
And when I say “us”, I have to include myself. Like most Resis, I’m idealizing myself with my avatar, even though only by about ten pounds (and those ten pounds have been pretty stubborn, actually! Maybe someone can invent a controller for Second Life where dancing requires actual dancing!). For today I won’t concern myself with our proportions, the way we can get particular parts of ourselves to be just the way we might prefer then: I’ll just talk a little (well OK, a lot) about skinniness.
I have no idea whether Torrid and our blogger friend at Dilettanteville are idealizing or even (and I don’t mean any offense by this!) whether their First Life selves are female, but their shapes look to me in the usual range for (tasteful) women in Second Life, with Dilettanteville’s being on the skinny end of the scale. Torrid’s shape isn’t too skinny at all: she seems to have opted for rocking the curves. 🙂
Before I go much farther, I just want to mention that it was very hard to find pictures that could easily be compared. Since I couldn’t get people all facing in exactly the same direction, and anyway the pictures are just two-dimensional and we can’t get around-the-body measurements, I just did my best to size everyone to about the same scale and hope that we could learn some things by judging with our eyes.
All right, as to ideals: I’m going to completely ignore the whole thinspo thing (that’s people who think you’re not skinny enough if any of your bones aren’t showing) – although I’ve seen avatars who are very unhealthily thin, and I worry about their First Life counterparts and those people’s female friends, relatives, and lovers! But let’s move right on to movie stars and supermodels. I picked a couple of movie stars who need to look attractive but who don’t seem obsessed with thinness…and then for fun I threw in Kate Moss, who’s much too skinny and seems to like it that way. Let’s take a look.
Kate Moss, Renée Zellweger, and Sandra Bullock |
OK, and for contrast (and a reality check!) here’s a group photo from a PTA convention (I’m not in it, by the way! The PTA isn’t quite my speed.), showing a nice range of shapes, neither of the extremes being healthy ones, but everyone wearing the shape they’ve managed to put together in First Life, no sliders allowed.
A range of real life women’s body shapes |
Now let’s make some observations! I was worried that Second Life avatars might be upholding a painfully unrealistic standard. Although, really, you might ask me why this would be a problem. The thing is, while I think either a body type that reflects your First Life shape or an idealized but plausible shape is fine, an unrealistically slim body – one that wouldn’t be possible in First Life for most women – buys into the same problems we have with movie stars and supermodels, who are chosen (a friend pointed out to me) because their shapes look appealing when projected in two dimensions. In other words, the Kate Mosses and Angelina Jolies of the world aren’t successful because they’re really, really healthy, or because their bodies are ideally sensuous for real life passion, but because when you project them on a screen, something in men’s (and some women’s) minds revs up. Idealized body shapes aren’t beauty itself: they’re a hieroglyph for it! And they’re certainly not health itself.
Ancient Egyptians would have been able to read this movie poster… |
So as a culture we’re brainwashing ourselves a little into confusing these cut-out shapes on a screen or a piece of paper with what we should look like in real life. Although when I say we’re doing it to ourselves, actually I think most of it is being done to consumers by businesses, some of whom, in a kind of cold-blooded and distanced way, notice that these hieroglyphs for beauty are good at selling things (movies, fashion, beer…), and so they keep pushing the envelope with them, and making them more and more widespread…and more and more extreme! I don’t know that this is actually evil of the businesses, but it’s not helping!
Which bombards us women (and to some extent men, in the way they think of women and in some ways themselves) with images that say “THIS, women, is what you’re supposed to look like!”
OK, OK, enough of Intro to Women’s Studies. What about in Second Life?
The thing is, in Second Life we get to create our own image of what we want to be. It’s like a self-expressive art class! So what images are we choosing?
I was worried that across the board we’d be unrealistic, foolishly exaggerated. But looking at the pictures, it doesn’t seem like that’s so! Some Second Life shapes are movie star-slim, or even just I-go-to-the-gym-a-lot-and-don’t-eat-carbs-slim, and while that’s not exactly the sanest picture of things, at least in those cases we’re not making things worse than they already are. In other cases, though, even among non-Thinspo avatars, we see bodies that are thinner than we could physically get without drastic surgery.
(Later addition: I wasn’t being entirely clear, so I’d better say I’m just talking about more-or-less human shapes, not people whose avatars are furries or robots or boxes of spaghetti or something.)
If you have an implausibly skinny shape, what are you telling yourself? If you’re a woman, are you trying to sell yourself on a shape you can never come close to having, and if so, is that making you happy or unhappy? If you’re a man, what are you telling yourself about what an attractive woman is? Have you ever snuggled up to an underweight woman? Does bony feel good?
Sorry, I’m lecturing. I try not to do that, but then sometimes I can’t stop myself. I’ll just do the cartoon thing and then hush. 🙂
Now, the cartoon thing is this: I’ve heard some people describe Second Life avatars as cartoons. That’s kind of disturbing, because I identify with my Second Life self, and I am most certainly not a silly little sketch of a person – and neither are you. If a person’s just using their avatar as a puppet, that’s fine, but it would be sweet if everyone would be willing not to use the words “toon” or “cartoon”, just because it will make the rest of us feel better. (But that’s part of the whole augmentationalist versus immersionist thing, which is just to say that some people use their avatars and others are their avatars.)
I think Disney Princesses have to get rid of some of their internal organs to fit more conveniently into the available wardrobe |
But of course some people do design their avatars like cartoons, which is where we see the hieroglyphic thing taken to ridiculous lengths. I mean, cartoons are meant to exaggerate: real deer don’t have eyes nearly as big as Bambi’s! But I think some cartoons go too far, especially some of the ones that children watch over and over. Can Second Life help bring a little more sanity to body image? Or are we doomed to only reflect the most aggressive images that are pushed on us from the outside? And what else can we do beyond considering our own body shapes?
Later addition: You know, there’s something exciting about this! Usually only people involved in advertising, media and entertainment get to influence what ideals of womanhood everyone sees – virtual worlds finally give that power to everyone. So now that we have it, what shall we do with it?
^^^\ Kate /^^^
kateamdahl said:
Hi Argent!
“Does being a one to one projection of a real person (minus a few pounds) make your feelings or thoughts more real than theirs? Are they wrong to express something inside themselves, or should they just “get real” like you have?”
Just for the record, I don’t consider myself a projection of my First Life self: My First Life self is in her (gulp!) late thirties, and while I often keep the same skin, hair, and eye coloration across lives, I didn’t make any attempt to reproduce my First Life proportions or features. Also, there are those wings that I conspicuously lack in the Atomic World. But I get your point: you’re talking about the difference between associating the First Life and Second Life selves versus separating them completely.
Anyway, my answer is no, I don’t think there’s anything less meaningful about being a completely different kind of self in Second Life than in First Life. My worry is about how we decide to interact with idealized selves, since we sometimes (not always, though!) project those idealized selves into Second Life. Are those other versions of ourselves making us stronger, happier, wiser? Or are we using them to put down our First Life selves?
Even if we think of the First and Second Life selves as different people, they’re still people who can have a profound effect on one another’s lives, so the only important question to me is what that effect is. I think for a lot of us (and I expect this is the category both you and I belong in, hon, despite a difference in how close we are to our First Life selves), our Second Life selves are very freeing. Maybe there are other effects and maybe those are worth looking at, but the main effect for that type of person is to feel embraced by the universe… 🙂
^^^\ Kate /^^^
LikeLike
azureavian said:
as much as i love to read your discourse on the mind and bodies of people and the affects and effects of both re: Second Life i can only speak for myself when i talk about body image.
when i first started, i did try to make an avatar that looked like my RL self. i failed… miserably. the sliders are just not meant for chunky but cute. =/
i ended up settling, quite happily, on the other end of the spectrum and have as my default a pleasingly athletic looking avvie. she is a bit smaller on the top (b cup?) than i expected and a bit bottom heavy, but it looks right and pleasing to me. she is also on the short side. i have alts that i also use depending on the situation, but 80-90% of those are just modifications on her basic form (a taller her, a slightly smaller bottomed her for those darn prim mini skirts that never fit a healthy bottomed girl. etc)
i like mine, i like the variety of other and i adore the choice to change if i want to. i’m even ok with the skinny mini, no-way-would-you-be-alive-if-you-looked-like-that-in-RL as long as they dont say i look funny.
keep on posting, someone’s got to think of these things.
LikeLike
cyfishy said:
My fleshy self is actually quite thin, and thus my avie is shaped much like my RL body is. Beginning has more of the, um, assets that my RL body doesn’t really have.
I personally commend the people who create larger avies, since it’s taking a body type that society doesn’t particularly look kindly upon and saying “this is who I WANT to be.”
Have you checked out Whole Lotta Rosie? Rosie Barthelmess decided to go through her Second Life with, as she puts it, “a little more junk in my trunk, and a little more donk in my badonkadonk!” And she notes that finding clothes that fit her and look good in SL can be as much of a hassle as RL . . .
LikeLike
faerie_h said:
There is another issue that also needs to be mentioned; the fact that SL does not treat curves well. Textures stretch and distort. Prims just do not fit correctly on any shape that remotely resembles a size 14 or larger. Looking at the picture of Torrid, whose avatar is still quite trim, you can see that she is only wearing prims on her arms and neck and that her shirt pattern is quite distorted across her bust.
When I made my first shape I made it an idealized but still, to me, realistic size 16 or so with some hips and bust. It looked great naked, but not so good dressed. I had a hard time fitting prims. They gaped in places while cutting into my body in others at the same time. My sides of my bust cut into my arms in many poses.
When I remade my shape a few months ago (because it suddenly became no-mod) I took the opportunity to sacrifice realism for practicality and slimmed my hips and bust back a few notches. My shape is now much more towards the realms of “I wish!” but is much more practical in that clothes and prims fit and photograph a lot better.
I admire Rose and Elysia and others with similar shapes for their courage but I’m just too time-poor (and a bit lazy and unskilled with prims) to be constantly fighting SL to get things to fit.
If I have to be skinny to enjoy myself then so be it.
LikeLike
faerie_h said:
If you want a good example of “superhumanly beautiful models who are literally “not possible in Real Life”, have a look at this link where they show a photo of Faith Hill and the resulting magazine cover *based* on the photo.
If poor Faith cannot live up to the picture of herself, what chance does anyone else have of looking like a magazine model?
http://jezebel.com/gossip/photoshop-of-horrors/heres-our-winner-redbook-shatters-our-faith-in-well-not-publishing-but-maybe-god-278919.php
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
As the dilettante at Dilettanteville — also known as Moran Singh in Second Life — you bring up some good questions. I must admit to idealizing my avatar. I look nothing like Moran. I’m no longer young and I certainly have a bigger body.
My only goal in creating the look of my avatar was to have fun. I tried all kinds of shapes and looks the first few weeks in Second Life. When I finally stuck with my current look it had more to do with a fondness for my nose. I did stick with small breasts (quite unusual in Second Life), and made my hips and waist to match, but not ridiculously so. My desire was to look realistic and not have often seen look of huge breasts, skinny waist, and either a huge booty or none at all. I’m also on the short side in Second Life; I’m tall in real life.
I had a co-worker who worked on her Master’s thesis regarding how women present themselves online. I was one of her examples of buying in to the cultural messages about women’s bodies. As someone who is comfortable being on the big side in real life, this kind of made me uncomfortable. Why can’t I appear as young and fit as I want? I’m not portraying me, I’m portraying someone with a different lifestyle. I would create an avatar that looked like me if I was to present myself. Yet that seems defensive. Maybe I am passing on a message that is too common for most of us women — that the only way to look good is to be young and pretty.
I also wonder if I stick to my avatar’s look because it blends in. Everyone looks young and cute in Second Life. It takes work to look old, fat, or any kind of different in Second Life. Maybe I didn’t want to stand out, and still don’t.
As for portraying a female with a body that isn’t like my real self, I can only answer how else can I have fun wearing outfits like ballgowns and funky little ensembles if I wasn’t a virtual Barbie? Oh well.
LikeLike
kateamdahl said:
Hi Moran! I’m glad you commented, and I’m happy to put a name with the face. 🙂
I feel the same way you do about a lot of these things…and you know, I didn’t dig up anyone *really* disturbingly Barbied, because I thought it would be more useful to look at kind of the mainstream and not outliers or people who don’t know how to craft a beautiful shape…and I still wonder how good a thing it is for so many of us to be buying into the young and beautiful look. I think it’s a complicated question with a lot of subtleties that will bear more thinking. Fortunately, I like tricky questions. 🙂
^^^\ Kate /^^^
LikeLike
jennyh72 said:
New Womens Body Shape Descriptions
My sister recently told me that I was a “pear” shape. I almost cried. I hate being referred to as a fruit. I know that most people use these terms to describe our shape, but there must be a nicer way to call my shape. So I decided to do some research…
I found a website that actually uses much better terms to describe our bodies. They use jewel types……what a great idea and way to describe our bodies! I am no longer “pear shaped…..instead I am “sapphire” shaped. I like that sooo much better. The website is http://www.holobi.com.., kudos to them for thinking of this. My sister is a “diamond”…I hate her.
LikeLike
kateamdahl said:
Re: New Womens Body Shape Descriptions
That sounds like a *much* better way of describing shapes! And if you ask me, a sapphire is much more interesting than a diamond. 😉
Now if someone can just come up with a good system to describe skin tones without referring to food…I keep fearing all people of color will be gobbled up because they’re chocolate, coffee, cafe au lait, caramel…
^^^\ Kate /^^^
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
When I met my wife in SL she was in a shape that I considered to be quite nice, but as time passed she traded it in for a more full-figured hour-glass shape and I have to say I absolutely LOVE the change. She wasn’t the average beanpole *before*, but with the addition of a few curves here and couple of virtual pounds there she looks absolutely stunning to me. for you guys in SL who think skinny is the last word in beauty, think again- once you go fluffy, you won’t like or want anything else after ~
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
I think that the bodies that are in sl is quite unrealistic, but then again, the whole concept is quite unrealistic….and maybe that is how we`d like it to be?? I mean, it gives people the opportunity to be some fantasy character, – look like the image they have in their head, or like someone they have seen in a movie or on a poster. You make like it or not, but I think most people have this idea of `the perfect, and for the most quite unrealistic body` in their mind. Then we can ask ourselves; – Where does that image come from in the first place? Fore one we are (for the most for women…) bombarded with images on how we `should` look, in order to be attractive; Skinny (on the right places) big boobs, big lips, and so on. Yet we are being told by men, that they like us with love handles and small boobs,and so on. On on hand, we are being told to be as we are, that we are good enough that way, on the other hand we are being bombarded with these `perfect bodies images`….And that is not always easy to handle for many women. It can be quite annoying to know that men are supporting this idea of the `perfect female body`, and at the same time are telling women that they shouldn`t diet, they should stay the way they are, they shouldn`t make their boobs bigger through plastic surgery and so on. Some men says it`s just the way men are, and that even though they might dream about big boobs and pouty lips, they are happy being with the more normal looking woman. Which ofc is good, yet, – it could in some cases make the `real life woman` feel a bit insecure about her looks, and ask herself; – If he are attracted to me, the way I am, then what`s up with the `unreal woman ideal`? Well, you could say that he is attracted to you because of who you are; – The whole package, your personality, your crooked teeth and your small boobs, your funny laughter and your talent for cooking. – And while he might have a dream of `the perfect shaped female`, it will not come close to who you are anyways, cause if he`s with you, and cares for you, then it doesn`t matter if your boobs are small or your teeth are crooked, cause after all; nothing comes close to the `real deal` – nothing comes close to you. All in all second life avatars is just exactly that – second life avatars. Nothing more,nothing less.
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
Yes, that (perfect body images) seems to be the impression ‘men’ are giving women these days. Well, let me tell you about one man’s opinion (me). I am just as annoyed by the second life body shapes as the poster of the first article. I myself actually hate those big lips, tiny waists, blow up boobs etc, but it seems that is all that can be found there. I think it’s great that some women are able to get the body they always wished they had (or think they should). My point is that for most women, creating their actual body shape is virtually impossible! It simply doesn’t allow a realistic waist, tiny belly, A or B cup breasts.
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
Re: New Womens Body Shape Descriptions
There was an anonymous reply here that I removed even though the person writing it made some good points because I felt like the way it was phrased, the good sense was likely to get lost in the bad feeling. If the author would like to contact me directly and talk about it, please do! I really did feel you had some good things to say, and I do think it’s good to get to the heart of things, but I think that sometimes it is better to do this gently.
^^^\ Kate /^^^
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
limitations
I know this is an old post, but I want to give my two cents. My avatar is not as chubby as I would like it. I am in rl a curvy girl. All my life considered at a good healthy weight but I have this “everything round” thing going on you know? Where at 120 pounds I just look chubby. And I find this cute. I tried and tried and tried to make my avatar a bigger girl, a plump gorgeous one. I have found the limitations on shapes to eff it up. I can get a bigger shape, with super muscular legs like I’m a body builder. Ankles that look awkward. Knees that have to be tilted weirdly in order to avoid the huge gap between thighs when I make my hips a certain way. The list goes on and on. Truth is, my avi is somewhat skinny because I can’t get it to look like I want as a bigger girl. And it really annoys me. That was me venting.
LikeLike
Anonymous said:
Hello, I hope my post is not too late… I agree that the shapes in sl are just unrealistic. In rl, I prefer my body. I’m pear shaped, typical mixed/afro body, but small boobs, big hips, ass and i’m a size 8 uk size. Although having issues with smaller boobs, i’m over it now and really, really happy with my body (most days lol).
I have made my av in the form of me, but with a thicker body, just because I didn’t want her too skinny and the probs with the boobs.. I’ve tried to give her a/b cups but as mentioned it is hard because skins have too much shading and from the front with some skins, my av looks like she has d cups, then from the side, a cups lol. It is really annoying.
Also features, it is all the same really.
I’ve had ideas for making stuff for specifically bigger and non-plastic shapes, but I’m not sure how popular it’d be.
I think it’s good that some peeps just see their av’s as dolls. They are paper dolls. Not saying that sl is just a game though. But, one of my male friends offered to buy me a laq skin… he said there was nothing wrong with the skin I was in but I should wear a high quality one lol I declined, not because laq skins aren’t pretty, but he did annoy me! It’s like I need to make my av so hot and then with a new skin i’m so hot! For me, I don’t think it works that way… I’ve met peeps with great skins/shapes/clothes, but to me they are just blah…
LikeLike