Virtual Metaverse VS Real Life: Relationships and Images that Vary
American Anthropologist, Tom Boellstorff, is a Professor & Graduate Student Director at the University of California, Irvine. His interests have taken him through the anthropology of globalization, sexual anthropology, and even the anthropology of HIV/AIDS. However, one of his primary interests include “digital culture” and “queer studies” (UC Irvine). In his work, Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, Boellstorff explores the relationship between virtual communities and ethnographic methods with that of real life and reality.
Second Life is an online and virtual world that was launched in the Summer of 2003. Second Life is a multiplayer online role-playing world in which users create virtual representations of themselves, also called avatars, and explore the virtual world. In this world, the avatars can perform actions similar to those we complete in the real world such as socializing with others, shopping, creating, building, and trading property. Destinations in the world range from Haunted and Cosmic communities to Duran Duran, Fashion & Style, and Skill Gaming. The world even features its own currency. Second life is primarily catered towards people 16 years or over, and is built into a software that is in a 3D modeling tool.
In his writings, Boellstorff talks of a world in which individuals can embark on flights to exotic locales where they can experiment sexually, culturally, and socially without the constraints and physical limitations in the real world. Real world constrains many aspects of relationships due to factors such as geographical distance, physical appearance, and social status. Boellstorff’s choice of ethnographic methodology is “ethnographic Immersion” that raises questions regarding the study of virtual worlds (Boellstorff).
One community that is similar to Second Life is IMVU. IMVU is the “#1 avatar social community” with the largest “3D catalog to dress up your look” (IMVU). It was founded in 2004, just a year after Second Life. The metaverse has over 3 million active users, and has it’s own currency system based on IMVU credits where characters can purchase outfits from retail outlets and department stores. Unlike Second Life, IMVU is much more focused on the buying and wearing of the latest fashions as opposed to other daily activities. IMVU does feature venues in which users can socialize with others and interact through the virtual world, as well as the opportunity for private chat rooms.
In an IMVU forum, users can discuss topics that other users post. For example, in 2014, Tantric222 posted a question that asked if there were any other users thinking of “taking their IMVU relationship into RL” (IMVU). Boellstorff stated that one of the aspects that virtual communities offered a solution for was geographic difference. Within the replies of other users, users talked about their experiences with dating through IMVU, and how it was able to bring the two parties close enough that they felt comfortable meeting IRL. In addition, IshikaruTanaka posted a poll with users on the IMVU forum asking if other users “bother to make their avatars look like their RL selves” (IMVU).
Out of the options she listed, 30% voted for the option where the avatar had the same style/dress of the user, but that it didn’t really look like the user. Another 30% voted for the option where the avatar looked “totally different” because the user liked “trying things that [were] different than [their] RL self” (IMVU). Together, 60% (a majority) of the users who took the poll admitted that the avatar did not look anything like themselves in real life. In the follow up responses, the users explained their answers by saying even though the avatar might not look like them in the real world, the avatar represents what users would ideally like to look like, and/or how they feel inside. The virtual medium allowed those users to represent themselves in an idealistic way that allowed for social interactions without the worry of real-life physical appearance.
