When I first entered Habbo Hotel I realized how out of my element I was. This is my first time being apart of a virtual world and I have no idea what I am doing. Lucky for me Habbo was really easy to setup. Unlike Barbie.com or World of War craft, all you do is go to different rooms in the hotel and chat with people.
First I was asked to create my Habbo identity. You could pick your race, character design and Habbo name. I am a female and tried to make my avatar resemble myself in real life. I quickly found that I could easily change my identity through simply wearing clothing I would normally not wear. I also found it interesting that you could choose to put a brown paper bag over your avatars head, talk about identity. I also had the option to put facial hair on my girl avatar, which kind of confused me. My first encounters in a virtual world and I already feel like I was losing my identity.
During my second visit I went to a nightclub in the hotel and observed the conversations. I felt left out because I was not apart of the conversations and was even told to go away after trying to dance next to someone. This did not stop me from exploring Habbo Hotel.
During my third visit, I was starting to question my identity in Habbo. I had been to the beach, a nightclub; played soccer and a singles only room and still no one would chat with me. I considered changing my identity by cutting my hair, changing my name to something provocative and even walking around in a swimsuit to get people to chat with me. Luckily before I did any of this “billmanlly” asked to be my friend. I am pumped!!! I go on to accepted and we start to chat. “illmanlly” ask some interesting questions, when I reply “no I don’t know you”, he says “we can do whatever, say whatever and ask each other whatever without being embarrassed cuz we don’t know each other, that’s the beauty of Habbo.” This chat triggered me to question billmanlly’s identity, would he have said these things to me face to face?
For me Habbo Hotel and similar virtual worlds are places for people to from an alter ego with high self-confidence. People can become whomever they want in a virtual world regardless of their true identity.
In your opinion, how is this notion that you can do or say whatever you on a virtual world-affecting people’s true identity? If “billmanlly” saw me in person would he ask me the same provocative questions or are people hiding behind a computer screen and not being honest about their identity?
I think people feel a lot freer in virtual worlds, hence why they go to them. I don't think that "Billmanly," would ask the same questions in the real world. There would be a lot more social pressures and interaction rules to consider and follow. People are in some sense hiding behind screens because it's become so easy to do so. There's a virtual world for just about everybody. I think people are more "changing" their identity rather than "losing" it. Some part of the actual person's identity has to be in the game or else they wouldn't have bothered to sign up for the game/world in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Melissa's idea of creating a new identity. I think people like Billmanlly create these types of avatars to be able to do exactly this. The freedom in these virtual worlds is appealing to a lot of people, which includes the freedom to be provocative, or participate in any other behavior that is not accepted in real world interactions. I don’t think this affects a person’s actual identity, but it does give an outlet to alter this fictional and ideal identity. If Billmanlly saw you in real life, I seriously doubt he would ask these same questions. In my blog I talked about the since of boldness that virtual worlds give people because of the safety from judgments, face to face interaction and personal relationships. As posed in the question, this idea of “hiding” behind a computer screen is common in these virtual worlds, because most people who make them are doing so to create an ideal avatar identity due to a lack of personal identity.
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