Today, I found an interesting website, “meez” (http://www.meez.com/main.dm). In this website, we can create characters as we like. It is free!! Since my topic of the final paper is online identity, I read many articles by Sherry Turkle that talk about ‘gender switching’ in online world. Therefore, I thought this was a good opportunity to create online identity of the opposite gender and decided to create a male character. Actually, I sometimes wish if I were a man. I don’t know if it is true or not. But for me, men seem to have more freedom and more independence than women. When I was an elementary school student, I wanted to join the local baseball team. But they did not allow girls to play in their team and I was rejected to play baseball just because I was a girl. In addition, since I was a girl, my mother worries about me more than my brother, which sometimes makes me feel a lack of freedom. For example, my mom let my brother go travelling abroad without any hesitation. My brother enjoyed travelling to Singapore last month!! On the other hand, it took me a few months to persuade her to let me go to attend the university in Canada. Generally, she respects everything I want to do. But when my action might involve some risks, she worries too much. The male character I created today was an active and good-looking adventurer. He was also riding on a horse, which is my favourite animal!! He is also wearing a cool suit, which is also my favourite fashion style!! The background I chose was a fantasy world, not the real world setting. I guess this fantasy world reflects my pursuit for freedom in the real world. At first, I thought it was meaningless to create a virtual character. However, the process of creating a character was fun. And I felt liberated to some extent. The character is male and looks different from myself, but it definitely reflects my real intentions. I feel a sense of closeness to the character. So I named him “Rema”.
Nice blog, and very informative! keep posting so that we could all benefit from it!