Workshop to menu-driven identities

participant: Joanna

Q1. Categories available are name, country, gender and DOB. The presumptions that these categories make about the users can be seen in the advertising that would be sent to each member. Knowing a member is a woman of a certain age and nationality, they can tailor their advertising directly to that member, and as time progresses and they learn more about the member, then the advertising can become more personalised.

Q4. I think the secondlife website is inherently racist as the avatars available are so limited. I haven’t played secondlife, but I’m guessing that “starting look” means you can later alter how your avatar looks, but assuming that the people who join are only either slim young white/black male or slim, young white/black female is not only inherently racist, but also ageist and sizeist. There are so many other possible ways people can look and the options are just not there. They are also assuming that this is how we want to look, and provides an excellent example of the fact that even on the internet you have to look a certain way to be socially acceptable.