Miller Time is Over

Aw…it’s the end of my virtual world experience. I can’t lie, I’m pretty excited about it. From being on Habbo Hotel, I think I’ve learned a lot about what “teenagers” are experiencing these days. At first, this virtual world was on the creepy side, and it had me worried as to what these kids were being exposed to. Perhaps because I was quite a sheltered, goody two shoes…I did not have sex on the brain. I don’t know what I would’ve done if someone online told me they wanted to babbo me.

But alas, I adapted, and accepted this quest. I met many creepy “teens” along the way, asking if I was feeling naughty, trying to undress my avatar, and believe it or not, I even got REJECTED on Habbo Hotel! I’d accepted a friend request, and decided that I’d chat with the best of them, and try and pose as a 17 year old (ah I felt so creepy). He was very nice, and asked me how I was, if I’d like to hang out, simple questions etc. It seemed like he wasn’t trying to de-pants my avatar. Then, he asked to see my hotel room. I accepted, thinking he just wanted to see what kind of decorator I am. He arrived, saw my sparse room, and asked if I was new to Habbo hotel. I didn’t lie, and said yes. He then asked me if I knew how to make out on Habbo, I again said no, and he left without another word! I was left…alone in my hotel room, after being rejected by some kid avatar. (dang).

So after I got over this depressing event (jokes), I accepted another friend. He was also very nice (Junior was his name), and previously his friend (CoolTony) had talked to me. Well b/c this CoolTony didn’t ask to be my friend, I couldn’t follow him when he left for other rooms. So I forgot about him, and began be-friending Junior. He was chatty, asking about me, and I tried to be as vague as possible without blowing my cover. He then told me to follow him, and low and behold I go to a room where CoolTony also is! Believe it or not, the two avatar boys started FIGHTING over me! This Tony told Junior that he saw me first, and that I was going to be his girl….I couldn’t believe this was happening. Bla bla bla, fast forward. Junior tells his pal to get over it, and he wants to get to know me. He then asks if I’ll be his Habbo girlfriend. Now, while I was watching this all unfold, it made me realize how serious people take this game, or at least how real they treat this world. After talking to Junior, and not hating my life, it got me seeing that some of these people who play are actually trying to make friends, instead of babies.

Sure, I’m not going to be logging onto Habbo Hotel ever again, but it was still an interesting experience. As far as the game went, it was a highly inappropriate game, with hotel rooms with multiple beds, and sex lounges and whatever else, but it had pros as well. It was easy to see sexuality, race, gender, and identity all play out while being a part of Habbo Hotel. But for me, I’ve decided to give up my Habbo key because my stay is over.

Habbo Race

Race is the final topic for these blogs, and Habbo Hotel has many good examples of exemplifying the differences in race, and how we as players and people interpret it. I think race also can coincide with some stereotypes, which may be viable during this blog.

First off, the best example of race in Habbo is the creation of your avatar. This is one of those games that has every color under the sun for you to choose from when choosing the color of your avatar’s skin. (I of course made my avatar tanner, because in real life I’m cursed with being so pale). They also have many different face shapes, so like we discussed in class today, its not the Barbie syndrome, where they took white Barbie, painted her brown, and called her a black Barbie- same facial features and everything. Instead, Habbo Hotel tries fairly well at being able to create many different races, both make believe and true.

Also, I found that asking what race/ethnicity you are, was a very prevalent question. Any time anyone messages you, you’re either asked your age, sex, and language/race. One boy flat out asked “what are you?” to me. I of course was oblivious to this, and I realized later on he was asking what ethnic background made up me as a person.

Besides this, I also think it’s interesting how any avatar that isn’t white, tends to fulfill some sort of stereotype about said race. Nine out of ten black avatars were wearing baggier clothing, or chains around their neck. Most of the white avatars had blonde hair and were lighter skin-toned. Even reading their speech bubbles, seeing how they wrote sentences, their word usage etc, made the player more aware of the race of the players (again could be considered a stereotype but for this argument, lets pretend its not). My only question after considering Habbo Hotel as the medium for conveying race, does it further fuel our stereotypes we have for races we aren’t a part of? Or not? Explain.

What kinds of races do you see in the virtual world you’re a part of and how does it compare?

Habbo and Gender

First of all, I would like to say I had a slight change of heart about Habbo Hotel tonight. I decided these last couple nights I’d play as much as I could stand, and hope to learn more about this virtual world—and I did! (I’ll get to that later). My next blog will be about gender…which is interesting to observe in this game. When I think of the word gender, I think it’s a hard word to completely define on its own, so instead gender roles in my opinion is easiest to understand. (gender roles are theoretical constructs in the social sciences and humanities that refers to a set of social and behavioral norms that, within a specific culture, are widely considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific gender.)—Wikipedia again.

You can observe these gender roles in every part of Habbo Hotel, but considering most of the players are interested in the opposite sex, lets relate that to gender roles. It’s true in society today, that men are the aggressive group. They are the alpha males, always asserting their power and strength, and do this with the help of finding a lady of interest. Sure in this day and age, women are being more assertive in what they want bla bla bla, but for the sake of this blog, let’s all agree that the majority of women still fall under the category of damsel in distress, so to speak.

Most women are just waiting for men to talk to them, hit on them, ask them on a date, and it is NO different than Habbo Hotel. What’s even sadder, is that I felt myself standing around “cute” boy avatars, hoping one would strike up a conversation. what?! Why?!

To go into further detail, I accepted (yet another) friend request, trying to devote my time to really understanding. His screenname was something like “Chevrita with some numbers behind it”, and he was very cordial, asked me to hang out etc. I was apprehensive considering the inappropriate undressing that tried to happen a few weeks ago. But to my surprise, he was very nice. He wanted to know about me as a person (of course I was posing as a younger girl, and made up every aspect of my avatar ---which I feel guilty for, but I’ll get over it). He didn’t once ask me if I had a web cam, msn, if I sent pictures, or if I was feeling any sort of randy. Which from playing Habbo, you could almost say I put under gender roles for male avatars. I expected for every single one of them to be looking for the hottest avatar tail they could find, demanding girls line up in front of them to pick the cream of the crop (which was obviously based on my previous encounters).

To my surprise, this boy from California- I’ll believe that he is who he said he was- in my opinion- was only looking for a lady friend who embodied what he deemed socially acceptable for females. As embarrassing as this may be ( I committed myself to this), I kept talking to Junior (yes that is the name he told me), and he talked about the ocean, his hobbies etc. He flirted and I tried my best to talk like I’m an expert Habbo-er. Eventually, he told me to follow him (UH OH!) but now…instead we showed up at a restaurant, where we had fake dinner.

My point is, is even though he didn’t fulfill the stereotype of the alpha male, trying to beat out all the others, and be the most desirable, he still took on the role of being a gentleman—which is a forgotten gender role in my opinion.

You can also look at gender in different ways, and in broader terms when making up an avatar. They give an array of options for both sexes, and they also give the players the option of trying to emphasize their genders. The girls get accessories for their hair, jewelry etc, which you associate with girls, and the boys got to wear different belts, have many hat options, facial hair etc, because those are some of the things you associate with boys and gender. All in all, while depressing in some aspects of our lives, this idea of gender is engrained in us throughout our entire lives. But how?

Do you think these gender roles are influenced more by family members, peers, and friends, or are these known from birth?

And/or

What are the affects Habbo Hotel is having on gender roles in society today, and with the youth that is using it (in every day life and behavior)?

Avatars and Identity

To begin my blog, let’s first discuss what an avatar is. An avatar, by definition, is a computer user's representation of himself/herself or alter ego whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, a two-dimensional icon (picture) or a one-dimensional username used on Internet forums and other communities, or a text construct found on early systems such as MUDs (multi-user dimensions). It is an object representing the user. The term "avatar" can also refer to the personality connected with the screen name, or handle, of an Internet user. This sense of the word was coined by Neal Stephenson in 1992 novel Snow Crash, who co-opted it from the Sanskrit word avatāra, which is a concept similar to that of incarnation. (and yes, this definition is from our dear friend Wikipedia, but I think it’s a good description)

Going off of this definition, an avatar is an extension of oneself that is manipulated in a virtual world by the user. With that being said, how does this affect one’s personal identity? A personal identity is how a person defines themselves, through many forums (age, gender, sexuality, interests, talents, personality traits), but does a user’s personal identity get lost within these virtual worlds?

You tend to conform to what is “cool”, even if you’re a thousand miles away from the players; you want a sense of belonging. I’ll even admit, when creating my avatar, it took some time. Of course it was easy to pick out hair color, eye color, and skin tone, but when it came to clothes, accessories etc, it was more difficult. I honestly thought to myself, what color I should make my shirt, what shirt I should wear, because I wanted it to say something about who I am. These choices convey a certain message about the person, sometimes based on stereotypes. Considering it’s all the players have to go on, and since it is “you”, one would guess that what you’re conveying through your avatar helps to explain your identity, but is that true? For example, some of these Habbo girls are running around in skimpy outfits—most people would say that Habbo girl is a hoe (fa sho). And some avatar boys could be called certain names, based on their appearances. See links (http://iwanttofitin.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/you-say-you-pop-your-collar/

And http://www.googlyfoogly.com/pictures/Anatomy-Of-A-Douchebag.html

My point is, however you make your avatar, there’s usually some sort of conforming happening when it comes to identity, partly because of the limited selections, and partly because you want to fit into some category. On Habbo Hotel and other virtual worlds, how much of one’s true identity can be portrayed through an avatar, and what are some positives and negatives about creating this avatar identity?

Sexuality in Habbo Hotel: I want to babbo the babbo out of you

All right, it’s been over a week that I’ve been living in Habbo Hotel. It’s easy to navigate (for the most part), and the more I’ve played it, the more I’ve gotten to understand it, and this is what I’ve come to know… everyone is looking to hook up!

Now, keep in mind, this website is for teenagers! Before I begin my views on sexuality in this game, I’ll tell you about my latest experience. Again, I decided I needed to talk to these Habbo inhabitants in order to understand, so I accepted friend requests willingly (all male, but one). I wasn’t sure why they were befriending me, but hey, I like friends. My very first “instant message” on Habbo read, “feeling naughty?”- my response was of course, “nah”. I didn’t get discouraged after this first inappropriate message, so I accepted my next friend’s conversation with hope. He asked how I’d been doing, etc, and I said I was new to Habbo Hotel, and wasn’t sure how it worked. He, being such a gentlemen, offered to show me around, and said to follow him. He of course led me back to his private hotel room. I was apprehensive, but I thought the best, thinking he may show me some secrets of how to play.

No. I was wrong.

I will not go into the inappropriate details but his avatar was trying to undress mine! I left.

But after this encounter, and observing all the conversations thus far, every one seems to be concerned with meeting the opposite sex for a romp in their virtual world. And if the people playing this game, across the world mind you, are mostly teenagers, what is this saying about society? I noticed how both male and female avatars were equally as interested in finding people to have a babbo* of a good time with. And it’s even more disturbing to think if the people playing aren’t between the ages of 12-17, but 40 years their senior. Why is this game so over-sexualized? Is it because our world is obsessed with sex? It’s the basis for everything; movies, TV shows, jokes, board games, news stories, newspapers, and now virtual worlds. I just wonder with this going on in virtual worlds, how will it affect the male and female users and the views on their own sexuality. I know if I were to play this game, at those formidable teenage years, it’d have a direct affect on my views on myself and what others thought of me. When I was in Habbo, one boy avatar was telling other avatar girls they were ugly and didn’t want them to add him (despite if they were babbo (horny)). If a fellow player tells you your avatar, which looks for the most part, like everyone else’s, is unattractive, wouldn’t that still possibly hurt your feelings?

An avatar is an extension of yourself, it’s a part of you, and if your avatar becomes so involved in these sexual endeavors, what would be the affects on you in the real world? Virtual worlds are looked at as places to find yourself, explore new endeavors, figure out what you’re all about, but Habbo Hotel users are mostly concerned with sex. With all this being discussed, who do you think is more at risk for forming a skewed view of their sexuality? And what could be the possible affects when forming your sexuality, if you’re doing so with the help of Habbo Hotel (or whichever virtual world the reader is inhabiting)