It's Miiiiiiiii

I also decided to go with the more familiar, simpler Mii avatar creator; Second Life seems like a convoluted site that I don't feel really carries any interest or significance with me. While I do have a Mii saved on my Wii at home, I made a new one (since my Wii is just that, at home). Here are the results of my work:

I definitely tried to make my character look somewhat like myself, and didn't venture out, like many did in the New York Times blog. This Mii carries a lot of my own traits: glasses, dark, messy brown hair, a pale complexion, and a gray shirt (I wear a lot of gray).

As I made my Mii, I considered it essential to make a fair, accurate representation of myself that others will be able to see and easily associate with the offline me. I think it's important that when engaging in these online worlds, one's avatar represent themselves enough so that there is no room for confusion, or deception. This alludes to Lisa Nakamura's concept of identity tourism, where people essentially try on new races, personalities, and other identities either loosely or not at all connected to their actual identity. When people do not stick to their own traits, it runs the risk that they may come into some issues with other users who do, in fact, identify with given traits that a user put on for fun. Yes, reality is suspended in simulated, virtual worlds, but it is still a community nonetheless, and people choose to take advantage of this by representing themselves in a completely new, different fashion. But in real life, it wouldn't be seen as acceptable if one were to lie about themselves in real life, so why is it all right online?