Avvies, identity and change

[Nienna]

I think a person's choice in picture can say a lot about them. I know that the pictures are mainly how I think about a person. I am a visual person and tend to see their avatar in my head. They can also tell about a person's personality and what interests them. I have a Klimt painting which says a lot about my aesthetic taste. Other people have pictures from movies they are fond of or funny things they have found.

Basically I think that since an avatar is a conscious choice that appeals to someone enough to make it a part of their online persona then it must say something about someone... even if it is only that they like cats.

[wilwarin538]

Interesting....I myself always stick to a theme, usually butterfly related, and blue, haha. I think that always seemed to reflect me, if anyone was to see a blue girl or a blue butterfly avatar they would connect that to me. I think there are lots of people who are similar in that sense, sticking to a certain theme and such.

I usually end up picturing people as their avatars, mainly when it's a person in it. Even though some people change theirs often (like Nogrod) I just kind of mix all of their previous ones in my head along with their current one. And the avatarless just stay a big question mark in my head, haha. Makes them very mysterious to me...

Some past ones of mine. The first one being my very first, and probably the one I kept the longest, the other being my previous one. I rather like my current one, I think it will stay a while.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I can remember only a few avatars I've had besides iSnape (which was chosen purely because it made me laugh): a photoshopped version of a charcoal sketch of a rose, a portrait of the Watchmen character Rorschach... Actually, that's all I can remember having. I'm sure I've had more, but none come easily to mind.

I have difficulty switching from avatar to avatar because I don't recognize 'myself' without the right combinations of text and image. Right now my Barrowdowns persona is a green square. If I changed it to red, it would throw me off.

I know there is one thing I bear in mind with all avatars: I like the backgrounds to blend seamlessly with the background of the forum, so I choose dark images, or manipulate them to become dark. I seem to remember once I may have had a galaxy, and I think for a time I had a fractal.

I've been thinking lately it's time for a change, but nothing has stood out for me. On a forum where people tend to retain your picture more quickly than your name (how many werewolf games have had people saying, "Wow, for a second I thought X said it, because Y has a very similar avvie"?), it's a conscious decision of how I care to be perceived.

I'm always fascinated by the images people choose to represent themselves. We (many of us, at least) live in a hyper-visual culture. The imagery we create tells a story about perhaps our passions, at the very least our aesthetic tendencies.

Nog: you are, in my head, an owl.

Wilwa is a blue butterfly.

The phantom is what he's always been, and The Barrow-Wight is a little green ghost.

Heren is fireworks, Kath is The X-Files. Greenie is green.

Some people can switch avatars all they want and I'll never notice. Other people I have come to identify by their pictures.

I wonder if that says more about my psychology or theirs.