SecondLife is a Community of Catfish

This week in RHMS 270, we discussed Walter & Parks, and their idea of warranting online. A warrant online is the strength of the connection between the embodied self and  self presentation. In simpler words, warranting online is the how much truth someone is giving to us about their true identity. I found this idea of a warrant to be very relevant with todays use of the internet and social media. Instead of talking about those two topics, which I cover weekly, I wanted to connect warranting to our class when we played SecondLife.

SecondLife is an online virtual game in which you can create an avatar, and play in a world with almost no limits. In this game you are able to essentially do everything you can do in real life, but have no consequences and no judgment from peers or people around you. Another interesting feature of SecondLife, was the ability to change your avatars appearance to either perfectly match your true self, or to not resemble yourself at all. For example, when I was playing SecondLife I chose to be a vampire, and other people in the server were horses, aliens, and all most any other creature you can think of. This ability to change your appearance so drastically instantly made me think of warranting online.

With this warrant available in SecondLife, people can be who ever they choose to be, instead of being who everyone else thinks or says they are. Because SecondLife has this warrant the physical self and the cyber self become very disconnected. This allows for people to portray themselves as someone that they are not, but to be viewed by others as themselves. This lack of honesty in identity is near to impossible in face to face interactions, but online it is very easy. Seeing the hundreds of avatars in the game and the distinct features that each had made it very difficult to tell what avatars were made in the likeness of someone, and which avatars are made solely for achieving the purpose of creating a new identity.

Although creating a new identity online because of warrant is not always a good thing, some good can still come from it. When this “fake” identity online becomes more comfortable doing things that one would not normally do, these online behaviors can carry over into the real world, and change a persons life. Warranting online also reminds me of someone that is a catfish, or someone who is not who they say they are. SecondLife is clear example of this! Imagine you meet a beautiful woman with large angel wings in SecondLife. You hit it off and begin chatting daily, and one day you decide to meet in person. Except when you meet this “avatar”, in real life, they don’t have wings, and are actually very different from their avatar.

The thought of meeting up with anyone in real life via SecondLife scares me. lol. From my experience playing I felt very strange seeing all these avatars and their different features that made them unique. The idea of warranting is not only seen in SecondLife, but it is seen all over the internet, dating profiles, social media sites, and even in face to face interactions. Learning about how people can differently portray themselves online in order to achieve a certain reaction is slightly scary. It makes me question who is really telling the truth about themselves, and who is not?

Side Note: I tweeted about everyone being a catfish last week and that tweet is more important now than ever before, lol. Check it out below!

So everyone is kind of a catfish..?#RHMS270 #rhms270 pic.twitter.com/90kQnRVoIi

— Michael Abraham (@michael70699747) October 26, 2018