Sociable Media: Second Life Strife

I chose to play around in Second Life, since although I had opened an account years ago, I think I used it for about 20 mins, got bored and never signed back in. I wanted to see if now that I was older, and a little more tech-savvy, I found whatever I was missing the first time; I didn’t. That being said, I asked my son and daughter (both 12) to sit with me and navigate the environment. That was interesting! My son, who normally will indulge me with anything computer-ish refused, as he thought Second Life was boring and would rather play Halo. My daughter jumped right in. She then proceeded to spend forever creating my avatar.
We didn’t actually get to play around in Second Life as she was so taken with my hair and eye color, spending 30 or so minutes trying to get my skin tone, body image and dress style—just right. As she was “barbie-ing” me up, I asked why this mattered so much and she explained that on her Wii she was limited to “how Black” she could make me, but this gave her “so much more options”. Grammar aside—I was surprised by how important it was for her to replicate my Blackness in ways that, I am guessing, traditional avatars don’t allow. This observation brought me back to the Barbies and Cabbage Patch dolls of my childhood, which I was not allowed to have until they made a Black one. I remember going to Consumers Distributing with my mom and my delight at finding a Black doll since all of the dolls of Toys-R-Us at the time were white with long hair. I then remember my annoyance when I realized that the Black doll was really just a white doll with darker skin—the features did not “look Black” enough to me. At that time, I had just come to a point in my life where I realized that I was different to the white kids in my class and so became hyper-conscious of my Black otherness when in their presence. The ability to commercially purchase a Black doll in a "white" society, spoke to me then, of a consumer affirmation of my existence and legitimacy in greater society. In this way, I relate to my daughter’s exuberance at her ability to create a “true” Black identity for me that she can share in the cyber-world. This observation reminded of Boyd’s (2008) point that “teens are modeling identity through social networking profiles so that they can write themselves and their community into being” (120). I think Boyd is arguing that social networking profiles help teens come to terms with their identity by developing, playing with and trying out notions of who they are with other cyber-beings. But beyond that, it seems that for my daughter, she is not only writing but legitimizing her (my) real identity through interactions in the cyber world as well; through the artists and architects addition of dark skin shades on the palette, and her ability to create these shades and have the avatar interact with others she is able to “prove” to herself and others that we are a part of the worlds she resides in. I may have some use for Second Life after all.