Research+Objective

= Research Objective =


 * Thesis:** Everyone is born into a world in which cultural norms are imposed upon them. Online, however, the process of norm construction is accelerated as it's easier for like minded people to locate each other. Because of this, individuals can be more bold and have fewer inhibitions; //therefore an individual's physical appearance in a Role Playing Game (RPGs), like Second Life, can drastically vary from his or her real life appearance disregarding real life social norms.//


 * Overview:** We want to explore how various environments (whether it is online or physically real) can alter and affect our choice in appearance and how we choose to represent ourselves. Social and cultural customs often determines how one must "look" in their environment and can limit how one wants to visually represent themselves. If social normality were customizable would people be more inclined to dress how they wish to dress or look how they really want to look? Our objective is to look into the world of Second Life in comparison to the real world and examine how our appearance varies due to lack of inhibitions and more social tolerance in Second Life.

= vs. = Images taken from http://www.12avatars.com/callie-cline.php and http://www.swanskagit.org/main.html


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