Ten: Finally a Bad-ass

I've always been concerned that Second Life is really just another singles bar for the 30+ crowd. But now I know that it can be anything and everything that you want. I mean really, including having sex with unicorns , but now for the first time, it was my anything and everything! What would I look like if I were able to decide how people would perceive me? What would I wear? How much would I self-disclose and most importantly, how close would I walk to people of the opposite gender!?

Having read Yee & Bailenson's paper on The Proteus Effect, I had a bit of an idea about what it takes to feel the behavioral confirmation of friendliness: attractiveness and height. But I also wanted to be a bad-ass. So, I designed a seven-foot Norseman with a bit of a beer-belly and huge biceps. I wore a black t-shirt in stark contrast to my graying-blond facial hair, which also showed off my aging but noticeably ripped physique. I got 2 tats on my forearms: one of them was of a snake on fire and the other was a flaming nunchuck. Some people later asked me if I had the same tat on both arms, but I'm guessing they were just in awe of how each tat could simultaneously be more bad-ass than the other, culminating in an endlessly rising fugue of bad-assery. Black leather shoes, well-fitting dockers and a crocodile cane put me looking almost as stylish as Dr. Hancock himself.

Being taller than most other avatars, I quickly found myself in the center of attention. This was probably because I found it easier to tell people about my love for jelly donuts and protein shakes (increased self-disclosure). I really did notice that a behavioral confirmation was occuring when I told a story about wrestling bears and Sycophantom111 said, "Big Jake [me] could probably win it, look how tall he is: he can do anything !" Well I felt it was true, and told some of my better stories to the gang. And before long, it was true.

I also found that looking down on people made it much easier to bargain for my vintage jean jacket- by about the second round of bargaining I would usually get a better deal. This is also supported by Yee & Bailenson, who found that shorter participants were almost twice as likely to accept an unfair offer in the virtual environment by the second or third split. Height perception plays a huge role in how people assess a rational level of confidence, and nobody was more confident than Big Jake.

Yee & Bailenson also found that being more attractive (read: Norse) would decrease the average distance that I spent from fellow avatars. This is because I would theoretically feel more confident due to my better looks. Well, I met this man, rAINguy324, that could judge distances really well in the Second Life environment.I said, "hey rAINguy324, I'll give you this vintage jean jacket if you follow me around for a while and give me a qualitative assessment of my average distance from other people." He said he would do it, and so I spent about twenty minutes walking around and starting conversations with other characters. When I was done, I said, "Well, what do you say rAINguy324?" and he said, "Big Jake, you, you're like the shadow on a bbbig cat! Sometimes I was wondering, 'Does that person have four legs or is Big Jake really that close!?' and usually you were really that close, but once it was somebody with four legs..." So if I'm ready to believe rAINguy324, Yee & Baileson were confirmed in that my attractive Norseman, Big Jake, spent his time much closer to fellow characters than the average Second Life hipster.

This experiment was so enveloping that I am now a part-time bartender at a nice little bar with lots of cowboy themes. Y'all should come by some time, just ask for Big Jake!

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