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Figure 2
Visualizing networked identity: Our engagement of avatars suggests that markers of race, gender,
sexual orientation, and ethnicity all translate across X-reality platforms. Image of Nubian Craven
of the series “13 Most Beautiful Avatars.” Credit: Eva and Franco Mattes, Postmasters
For better and for worse, putting a face on things also attaches the societal associ-
ations that such a face bears. (See figure 3.) An obvious example is that you do not have
to be female to appear in a female avatar. And, in fact, historically among networked
computer gamers, it has always been that more males represent themselves with a fe-
male avatar than vice versa. When interviewed about their choice to play a female fig-
ure, male gamers give two primary reasons for doing so. The first is that they would
rather look at an attractive female body while playing than a male one, even if the fe-
male body is “their own.” The second standard response is that female avatars receive
more courteous treatment than their male counterparts by other players. In my inter-
views with men using female avatars, subjects describe experiences that complicate the
simple terms of male-to-female game play. If we understand that a virtual figure ap-
