I’ll Be a Cute Brunette, Please: The World of Avatars

By Elizabeth

“What the F$%k is an AVATAR?“, I thought to myself just a little over a year ago. My nine-year-old nephew told me that he’d bet $5 that his avatar online was cooler than mine. Considering mine would have been a lost girl drawing a….total blank….he was probably right.

Having felt embarrassingly ignorant to this concept once myself, I’m gonna score some karma points by giving you the rundown of what exactly all these nine-year-olds are talking about.

Avatar, in Hindu philosophy, actually means a bodily manifestation. The concept isn’t so glamorous when applied to the internet and computing, though. While an avatar is still a bodily manifestation of some sort when on the internet, it’s more like a cartoon character that you pick to represent yourself rather than a higher being.

The whole craze actually started in 1985 with a computer game called Ultima. The “avatar” was the visual on-screen persona of the player. Nowadays, everyone from elementary school kids to grandparents looking to find friends online have become familiar with this concept.

Typically, in the land of chats, forums, blogs, and games, a person has to pick their avatar from a bunch. It’s kind of eerie, if you ask me! Everyone from every age group is now learning to associate themselves with a little cartoon based on basic traits like eye, hair, and skin color. Of course, if you’re lucky, you may even get to represent your very own subculture with your avatar…you know, broadcast to the world that you’re a punk by choosing the avatar with a mohawk, for example.

So does this sound like something you never want to be a part of? Well, you’re probably too late in drawing this conclusion. Even buddy icons on AIM function as avatars.

Yes, ladies, it’s true: we are becoming a generation of images. So I’m gonna take advantage of it and pick an image of some super hot brunette cartoon. I win the avatar game!