Reimagining the avatar dream

Harrell, D. Fox; Lim, Chong-U

doi:10.1145/3098342

Cited by 19 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Academic research has posited that personalized avatars that appear similar to the physical body, for example, through photorealistic scans like those proposed by Meta and other virtual reality companies (Rubin, 2019), can improve agency and presence (Waltemate et al, 2018). Support for avatars that are consistent with users’ actual physical bodies has also been reinforced by research pointing out systemic problems with discrepant avatars, for example, those that are hyper-sexualized (Fox et al, 2015), and/or fail to represent race and ethnicity equitably (Harrell and Lim, 2017; Kafai et al, 2010).…”

Section: Virtual Worlds and Avatar Embodimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economy

Won,

Davis

2023

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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In the physical world, choices about self-representation are tied to the body. However, avatar embodiment offers users many more options. These options are often constrained or promoted according to the economic models of the platforms that support different virtual worlds. Still, work on user motivations for avatar embodiment has generally not accounted for these constraints. To help explain users' interest (or lack of interest) in immersive technology, we discuss the mismatch between platform intentions and avatar affordances. We describe how user and platform motivations intersect in the ‘embodied identity economy’, a model in which users either ‘pay’ for access to embodied experiences with data from their physical identity or fund economy with cash payments. We present a framework of avatar embodiment using two dimensions: consistency versus discrepancy with the user’s physical identity, and experiential versus identity-based self-presence. We describe three ways in which avatars can be consistent with the user’s physical body: through appearance, through behavior, and the extent to which avatar data is linked with the user’s identity in the physical world. We relate this concept to recent discussions of a proposed ‘metaverse’ as a hub for life online.

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Section: Virtual Worlds and Avatar Embodimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economy

Won,

Davis

2023

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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“…These authors assert that "the problematic mediation of gender and ethnicity via CCIs act as 'regulatory regimes,' uncritically participating in the cycle of socially exclusive values" (p. 238). Many of the recent efforts to integrate diversity in games work focus on computational approaches to increasing diversity into avatar experiences (Harrell & Lim, 2017;Vermeulen, Van Looy, De Grove, & Courtois, 2011) rather than using quantitative approaches to examine how the diversity of those experiences play out in real gaming contexts. As we specify below, incorporating strategies utilized by qualitative scholarship into quantitative work will allow more diverse interpretations of gender to be measured and validated in generalizable terms, and will thus deepen our understanding of gendered experience across time and space, as well as in terms of individual variance.…”

Section: Beyond Binaries Of Sex and Gender: Evolving Work In Literarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video Games

et al. 2019

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This article examines how the embodied experience of contemporary avatar use overlaps with 19th-century American sentimental literature and cultural assumptions about gender and readerly identification in that period. Drawing on recent quantitative and qualitative research on avatar use and ongoing scholarship on nineteenth-century literature, we offer theoretical insights about the resonance between historical and contemporary understandings of media consumption as it intersects with cultural notions of sex and gender differences. Theories of sentimentalism help us to reconsider how gender is conceptualized in quantitative studies of avatars. Our cross-disciplinary study of embodiment and visceral experience thus argues for expanding modes of inquiry within quantitative games scholarship to more fully capture the interplay between gender identity and individual factors in avatar experiences. We conclude with three strategies for quantitative games scholars to consider as a means to enrich our understanding of the complexities of gender in modern game contexts.

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“…systems [2]. In any such system, one would expect different user groups to customize their avatars differently.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Regional Trends in Avatar Customization

Mawhorter¹,

Şengün²,

Kwak

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Games

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Since virtual identities such as social media profiles and avatars have become a common venue for self-expression, it has become important to consider the ways in which existing systems embed the values of their designers. In order to design virtual identity systems that reflect the needs and preferences of diverse users, understanding how the virtual identity construction differs between groups is important. This paper presents a new methodology that leverages deep learning and differential clustering for comparative analysis of profile images, with a case study of almost 100 000 avatars from a large online community using a popular avatar creation platform. We use novelty discovery to segment the avatars, then cluster avatars by region to identify visual trends among low-and high-novelty avatars. We find that avatar customization correlates with increased social activity, and we are able to identify distinct visual trends among the U.S.-region and Japan-region profiles. Among these trends, realistic, idealistic, and creative self-representation can be distinguished. We observe that the realistic self-expression mirrors regional demographics, idealistic self-expression reflects shared mass-media tropes, and creative self-expression propagates within the communities.

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Reimagining the avatar dream

Cited by 19 publications

References 13 publications

Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economy

Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economy

Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video Games

Identifying Regional Trends in Avatar Customization

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