Deconstructing my virtual self
Over the last week I’ve had to re-establish my virtual brand inside Second Life. Moving to a new principal avatar at short notice caused me to reflect on the many ways in which the real me had become intertwined over time with a virtual projection. Despite many a long conversation with other semi professional Second Lifers I hadn’t properly articulated these to myself. It also brought into focus many practical, real world issues which may be useful as a mini case study when people come to consider the relationship between our ‘ real lives’ and virtual extensions. So in extended answer to a recent blog post by Shirley Williams who asked Is you SL avatar a projection of yourself?
Yes and here is how.
Who was ‘he’?
Head Teacher was the avatar I adopted when I started work for Languagelab just over two years ago. Languagelab owns the ‘Teacher’ surname in Second Life – similar to web domain – and as such it is valuable as a type of company sub-brand. The name was no accident. My role with Languagelab was Director of Education so I was also the Head Teacher. In addition to active involvement in the delivery of learning, the role involved relationship building and public representation at numerous conferences and panels where my real identity and personality were to the fore.
Why was ‘he’ ‘me’?
It / he / I needed to dress in a way which reflected my role. My image was partly composed of who I was professionally but also reflected what I thought was expected of it / him / me. It was necessary to be reassuring for paying students’ expectations of an educational authority figure. I made a considerable effort to make Head Teacher resemble me, I used a special photographic face mapping service to create a likeness. There was a picture of Head Teacher on the back of my first set of business cards -a gimmick at the time which turned out to be surprisingly effective networking gambit.
 Head Teacher in his pomp |
 betwixt and between |
 The baseline |
What is a ‘company avatar’?
It has different aspects to it. Clearly it is a real identity as well as a standard-bearer for the company just I fulfilled that function in real life. There is the analogy of an email address as Head Teacher was the hub of a communications network with the SL contacts of people I had known prior to Languagelab, anyone I met in role and people I was in contact with since. Head Teacher also was a repository for tools, company information, teaching content as well as personal effects. Summing up, what was initially ‘leased’ as a piece of company property and corporate brand soon merged with personal brand, reputation and identity.
‘He’ vs ‘I’
The relationship which people have with their avatars in Second Life varies considerably. Some people refer to their avatar in the 3rd person such as my colleague Anna Begonia who blogged about this . It depends on the identity being projected onto the avatar, the degree to which it represents the real you , which is not the same as the degree of personal investment as we can put a great deal of effort into representing only one aspect of ourselves. The exclusivity of the relationship between user and avatar is also a factor. Many people, myself included, have accumulated several avatars over time. My infrequently used avatar would be ‘he’ but Head Teacher was definitely ‘me’. Also, while I was at Languagelab, we hired real life actors to play characters we had designed for them in English City. Some of these people had quite complex, composite virtual identities: their ‘personal’ avatar; their performance avatar for general use outside Languagelab; their Languagelab character. Many people of course are protective of their real identities in Second Life. What seemed to me to be unusual here was the multiple layers and the care to firewall one identity from another.
Life after work?
When I left Languagelab in December 08, there was no agreement reached about the continued use of Head Teacher. When considering moving to another identity though, I realised how much I was attached to him as well as how much ‘he’ was ‘me’ in Second Life for my professional network. As with other social networking tools, you are pretty locked into a Second Life identity. I don’t think it is possible to export your address book, store personal belongings in an escrow space. Moving house wasn’t going to be easy.
Separation
So when I was rudely dispossessed of the avatar without agreement recently, it is fair to say I was upset. The original creators of an avatar have the ability to reset the account and change the locks, as it were. Someone had taken the decision to call in this loan of company property as they saw it. Being told that no-one thought it mattered as it was surely a surplus avatar lying around didn’t placate me as it is roughly the equivalent of someone comparing your online brand with an old second hand jacket. However the misunderstanding was resolved more or less amicably and Head Teacher was released back into my temporary custody to enable me to transfer my possessions to another identity.
As might be imagined from the foregoing, there is a lot more involved than asset transfer. It is about deconstructing an identity. I needed to record my old list of contacts for subsequent notification- not so easy when these have been deleted. Groups are important as a type of network portal and source of information. They also control access to specific land in some cases. I needed to remove my personal payment details from accounts associated with Head Teacher and remove anything personal or which I strongly identified with and could lay a reasonable claim to. Finally I removed the ‘texture’ or image in the avatar which made it resemble me. I also need to let my network know about the change to avoid future confusion and embarrassment on both sides – another reason for this post.
A new me
Pending a response from Lindenlabs to a request for a ‘real’ name, meet Paolo Inventor. Paolo (still a ‘he’ at this point but that may change) will likely be adopting a less formal mode of dress. His face still needs a bit of work though thanks are due to friends who helped me get him this far. You know who you are.
Over the coming weeks, Paolo will be re-establishing links with old friends and contacts.
Meet Paolo Inventor
