Avatar Identities

thoughts on Virtual Identity and Pizza Noses

NONOBADKITTY!, Bridge Scribe

Have you ever wondered what makes people create the avatars they do? I have. In fact, I've even wondered what makes *me* create the avatars I do. <G> So, I decided to have a little fun and think back to all the numerous identities I've had in the Dreamscape and why I assumed them to begin with. So, come with me back to the dark ages, way back in November 1995 when I was a freshly hatched newbie ...

Once upon a time, before head spray and turfs, when Acolytes could actually be found and the Oracles would actually answer my ESP's, I stepped off the Argo in my very first Dreamscape avatar form, as someone named Harmony. I'll bet none of you even remember her. She was normal ... the only normal avatar I've had. <G> She lasted about a month, because, being normal, she was *boring*. Basically, she was more or less like me, except younger, thinner and cuter. But she wasn't a whole lot of fun to be, so I decided that since we get two avatars in the Dreamscape it would be fun to experiment, so a goofy looking cat was born, Cosmocat, who was based on my real world cat, only he could type better. <G> Cosmocat was a whole lot more fun to be than Harmony, and he was smarter, too ... he figured out how to paint heads, which made him even *more* fun to be. It also made him famous. So, for about a year, I used Cosmocat, until he took on a life of his own and became unruly and obnoxious and I had to kill him.

But what made Cosmocat take on a life of his own? Did he really or was I using him to express some deep dark part of myself? Was I really an obnoxious, annoying, sarcastic little twit who was nosy and rebellious and oracle obsessed? <G> It is kind of interesting that soon after I killed Cosmocat the first time (he died at least three times), I created another cat. It's also interesting that over time NONOBADKITTY! has taken on some of Cosmocat's traits, like being oracle obsessed. What does this say about my ratava? Do I even want to know? <G>

Anyway, I've had lots of identities in the Dreamscape, 41 in fact, most of which only lasted a day or two, so technically they weren't really identities but just name changes. But I have experimented quite a bit, and the one thing that I've found most interesting, is that people treat you based on how you present yourself, and, if you pay attention, you'll notice that *you* change depending on how you present yourself. Or at least I do. When I was Cosmocat, he seemed to be accepted for his computer skills due to the fact that he painted heads, when in fact my ratava is totally clueless as far as computer programming is concerned, but somehow as Cosmocat I seemed to be able to fake it well enough that everyone assumed I was either a programmer or a hacker. I didn't have the heart to tell them I didn't even know what a hacker was until after I was accused of being one. <G> But since Cosmocat was male and males are smarter when it comes to computers, (everyone knows that, right? <G>), I just kind of believed I was a techno cat. If Cosmocat had been female, I'll bet not only would he not be accepted for his skills, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable pretending I knew stuff I didn't. As Cosmocat, it didn't matter, I just did it anyway, because Cosmocat had guts that my ratava didn't.

I also once had an avatar who claimed to be a thief. He wasn't a thief, but he said he was, so he was treated as a thief by the majority of the community members. But he was *not* treated as a thief by the thieves, which I found really interesting. It seemed you weren't considered a thief until you proved it to your peers. He didn't, so he wasn't a thief by their standards. But the *normal* avatars figured that if he chose to present himself as a thief, he *must* be one, because he must be representing some part of his real world identity through his avatar. It just had to be that way, no one could possibly role play something that was not at least a little like their ratava. So my thief avatar didn't last long, because he was not accepted by the thieves because he hadn't proved himself and he was not accepted by the mainstream community because he must be a thief due to the fact that his ratava chose to role-play a thief. So, he was stuck in the middle, and being stuck in the middle is not a good thing in the Dreamscape, so another one bit the dust.

But I do find it very interesting that through all my many identities, it does seem that at least a tiny bit of my ratava seeps through into my avatars eventually. I liken it to creating a role in a play - you're given the facts of the character by the author, but you use yourself to make the character come to life. In the Dreamscape, we may choose to role-play, but eventually it seems that the character we create becomes us in some way, and although at first I found this rather annoying, I kind of like it now. But I do wonder about my obsession with Oracles ... where did *that* come from? Was it a result of the initial paranoia that began when poor Cosmocat was caught red-pawed, painting heads in the Temple so long ago? And why oh why does NONOBADKITTY! wear pizza on her face? I'll leave that one up to *you* to figure out. <G>

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