The term ‘avatar’ originates from the Sanskrit word ‘avatāra’ which could be translated as ‘manifestation’ or ‘appearance’ of divinity into the physical world. Today, these ‘cartoonesque’ images have been democratised, but unfortunately, they also lost their mystical aura. Even though many people only see a two-dimensional image, for others, their avatars may be closer to a ‘doppelgänger’, a digitalised alter ego. Entrusted by us, these virtual personas can act out scenarios potentially unconceivable in the physical world in the likes of Freud’s ‘Heimlich and unheimlich’. Within the online game realm, avatars have now evolved into sophisticated representations offering greater technical freedom to customise our digital image according to…
According to what?
What if MORPGs (multiplayers online role-playing games) could afford us a new and safer path to explore who we would like to be, who we could be, or who the world seems to ask us to be? What if we could ‘try’ different versions and have a ‘feel’ for who we truly are inside.
Could our avatar customise us?
In 2017, Mancini and Sibilla had similar questions and decided to rely on two theories of Self to answer them. They integrated the concepts of cognitive dissonance (Festinger) and self-discrepancy (Higgins) to identify three domains of self which seem to co-exist when playing in MORPGs; the actual self, the user’s perception of who they are in real life; the ideal self, who the user would like to be; and the avatar self. According to Higgins, there can be a ‘gap’ between these views leading to negative emotions, the so-called discrepancy. Now his third layer, the ‘ought self’, reflects who the person believes they ought to be, therefore, if this level of self is associated with our avatar, could we project onto it the ‘expectations’ and ‘pressure’ of our environment and in so doing digitalise the conflicted experience (reproducing the malaise) and increase our stress level (let’s face it we are all stressed no point discussing) as Festinger believed?
While I have been working online for about 25 years, and spent many weekends split between eating, sleeping and Super Mario (many moons ago!), today I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘player’. However, my son is, and an ‘experienced’ one I may add! Don’t judge me here, gaming has helped him in more ways than I can count. I’ve seen how he compensates some of his sensory sensitivities through his mouse and the movement similarities between his avatar (Minecraft) and the way he moves his body in the physical world, yet he seems to control one more than the other.
The ‘blondie’ avatar up there is ‘me’, my digital version that is, as seen through my daughter’s eyes. She is the artist in the family and when I asked her to create my avatar, she translated my appearance pixel by pixel; the hair, the glasses of course, but for those who know me, she also captured the way I present myself, ‘my style’ if I have one (?!?) always wearing a shirt under a light sweater with the sleeves sticking out, a pair of trousers, black shoes rarely more than 2 colours at once.
Does that make you know me any better? Of course not, but this image makes me more personable, doesn’t it?
Imagine how powerful would be a 3D avatar capable of speaking and moving like me… cringey or exciting?
