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ular use of the space, place, and temporality of engagement. The marking as habitat,
whether in language or graphical image, becomes an important precedent for how we
have entered an age of avatars.
Age of Avatars
Avatars and their virtual worlds have tweaked the curiosity of the generation that came
of age with the a graphical Internet, i.e., the web. By the spring of 2008 there were an
estimated thirty-five million people playing in virtual worlds in North American and
craft, a game world, accounts for about eleven million paid subscriptions of that num-
saturation numbers in South Korea for Cyworld, a 2D Web and mobile virtual world,
were 40 percent of the population, with twenty million unique users monthly. Why has
there been such a proliferation in these platforms over the past five years? What is the
value of avatars to network culture? Or perhaps let's begin with an even more basic
question. What are these things?
The tipping point for an age of avatars came in 2005, which saw a proliferation of
graphical virtual platforms designed for all kinds of activity: social worlds, medical
training worlds, business worlds, kids' worlds, and game worlds. These were commer-
cially produced virtual worlds designed for general users. Influential companies such as
IBM, Disney, Google, and Viacom created branded multiuser spaces that played with
new ways of expanding the experience of the Magic Kingdom or MTV. First out in
1999, well in advance of the trend, Viacom's Webkinz world connected virtual play
with real-world stuffed animals. Instead of an imaginary space where stuffed animals
could talk to children, players had an actual shared virtual space where that happened.
Disney opened a popular Magic Kingdom virtual world to celebrate the anniversary
of the theme parks (the parks when created in the 1950s were already a type of virtual
world of their own). The enthusiasm for the virtual forum was such that when Disney
chose to shut down the virtual Magic Kingdom after it had run its course, the players
staged a protest to keep it open. Disney extended its virtual world holdings in 2005
when it acquired Club Penguin, a youth-oriented virtual world populated by penguin
avatars, developed by a Canadian media design group. With its combination of caus-
al games, customizability, and group activities, Club Penguin has proven to be one of
