AVATARS THE NEW FORM OF SELF EXPRESSION

I read up a lot on Avatars and web3 because it was fun and so I wrote a notion doc about it… I need friends. But yaa, these are things I read on articles(mostly studies about avatar platforms like second life, palace and VR chat) and thoughts thinking about them.

Fictional Identities:

It’s a primal need of human beings to imagine themselves in fictional situations, to think of themselves as fictional characters or identities of the imagination. We have always looked for ways to express these identities through art forms like paintings, movies, music, and games in an act of self-expression. I feel Avatars and platforms related to it could be the next step of self-expression. Essentially, a new definition for avatars could be derived as tools for self-expression.

If you really think about it movie/story characters are the oldest forms of avatars. These were fictional identities formed in the head and adopted by people. It’s fun to watch Ross do things with his good looking friends because those are situations that you would want to attach to your identity.

Psychology behind Avatars:

It’s quite simple. The freedom to fictionalise your identity and explore them is an innate want for humans. We like to explore different fictional identities through tools called characters in movies, shows and stories, where different identities are explored in context to a story and a world built to support the characters. These ‘story’ identities then also prove to become identifiers of identities, the same reason your annoying fucking friend calls you the ‘Ross’ of the group and himself the ‘Chandler’ of the group. These tools also help you find people that like or agree with the identities that you agree with.

“Avatars are creative self-expression tools, because to place oneself into a form created by one’s imagination is the essence of creativity”

- I forgot the name but its still a nice quote.

While studying this topic, I am becoming increasingly sure of the fact that Avatars are the next tool to explore fictional characters but at an even more personal level.

Since avatar interactions would be on virtual spaces there are fewer social consequences and your anonymity helps you to be who ever you want.

Influencers the first avatars:

I guess, at this point its common knowledge that social media is fake (if this was a shocker to you, sorry for breaking the ice), Its fake because social media essentially gave people the power to show their existence however they want to.

Thats massive because earlier, all accounts human existence were either recorded by third parties, all open to interpretations. Social media revolutionised the game of showing your existence and gave the power to individuals in choosing how they want to do it, as a result you have fictional human lives manufactured by individuals on the internet and people follow it. Hence, we can call ‘celebs/influencers’ the first breed of avatars.

The evolution of Influencers is just proof of humans wanting new-new avenues to explore fictional identities with even more personal control.

Human to Avatar relationship:

When someone makes an avatar, subconsciously they try to project what/how they want to see themselves onto the avatar( There are exceptions to this, let’s get to it later). For example I have always wanted a lean muscular physique and now that I look at all the avatars I have played with, all of them have lean muscles and taller body types. Essentially Avatar provides you tools to test out these various versions of yourself in a social setting.

It also works in ways for people to project their inadequacies onto the Avatar-like a smaller person would rather have a taller, strong-looking character, a fat person would go for a muscular character or fat cute looking avatar because that’s the way they would want others to perceive them.

There could be three degrees to Avatar identity identification:

Player : The beginning phase where Avatars are just playable objects that a person can control.

Character: Where the avatar represents one aspect of the user’s personality.

Persona: Here is where virtual personality and real personality overlap.

Avatar to Human relationship:

The use of avatars can also lead to change in real-world behaviour in people, this usually happens with the user observing how his/her avatar is perceived in a virtual social setting. For example: Taller avatars show more social confidence in most virtual rooms leading to an increase in player confidence among peers. This also applies to attractive and cooler avatars.(What defines an Avatar as cool dependents on the platform and the community that uses it)

User behaviour also shows that people test out areas of their identity in a virtual setting before trying it out in real settings. There are cases of LGBTQ users trying out flamboyant outfits or trying out behaviour in the virtual world that they may not be socially comfortable within the real world.

Broadly speaking there could be three types of Avatar users:

Realists: People that want their avatar to be exactly like them and their identity in the virtual space is also the same. These are people that view the virtual world as an extension of their real world. These are people that continue to have a singular virtual identity for a long period.

Idealists: Users that want a better version of themselves visually. These are people that continue to have uniform personalities in virtual and real worlds but feel the need to overcome perceived inadequacies through avatars. Their way of creating and maintaining the avatar would be in an idealised manner of their real-world self.

Roleplayer: Users that would want to separate their real-world self from the virtual world self, both in terms of looks and personality. These are users that want to be someone else entirely in the virtual space.

The avatar behavioural loop:

You create an avatar – You attach some kind of identity to it(either given or self-made) – You test out that identity among other people in a virtual space – See how people receive it- Repeat.

(The player mostly wouldn’t make a new avatar for each new iteration to their identity but they repeat that process of testing and seeing people’s reaction)

What should people be able to do with Avatars?

• Self express themselves. At its core, people want to try out versions of themselves that they normally can’t. There are shards of identity that every human keeps to himself but can show on a virtual space.
• Have real life change because of their time spent as their avatar. Psychological effects like the **Proteus effect,** The change in behaviour of a person in virtual space because of the characteristics of their avatar. This usually comes from online communities, social validations and finding niches.
• As people exist as Avatar, self-created fictional versions of themselves they are essentially creating their own stories and enabling them to tell their stories would be very important.
• Find their niches, find communities like them and exist in them.

Utilities for Avatars:

I guess, NFTs and their utilities should kind of act as the first forms of this new way self-expression through avatars, where it’s a way of identification of values and self. A bored ape right now costs a billion dollars because I guess, it works at the most superficially way, yet effective way of giving people another identity, that is of celebrity and novelty.

Platforms that would want to capture this avatar user market should start catering to the more inner needs of human beings.

Future:

I am no simpson’s writer to predict the future but in my humble thoughts, avatars could be a new way to represent one’s identity by becoming a tool for identity fluidity (basically the chance to be whoever you want)

One of the reasons Instagram or any other social media platform were able to become this huge was because they provided the tools of expressing the self, easier and more accessible to the public. You could present yourself how you want to, to others through stories, posts or reels and make a small niche of people that follow and like it. Well, I guess the recent surge of influenzaas are a proof of this happening. I feel the next big companies and corporations would be the ones to figure that out in the virtual world.

I am no expert in anything nor do any of what I have written present as facts or predictions just interpretations of a curious man.But seeing all the things that are happening in WEB3 and metaverses, I just have a feeling that something new is happening in the way Humans and civilisations have existed and I am curious to see what happens.