Avatars & Humans Unite to Fight Facebook
by Alphaville Herald on 13/05/09 at 8:14 am
Facebook group to petition for avatar identities on Facebook
by Pixeleen Mistral, News Idoru
A sadness tinged with arousal – Facebook is already an MMORPG
The grand tradition of self-referential emergent behavior in social software continues as Facebook users have formed a group to petition the Facebook gods to allow avatar and pseudonym personalities to live free from fear in Facebook.
The social networking site has a no-avatar policy which appears to be unevenly enforced — in some cases media celebrities are allowed to use their pseudonyms or stage names for their Facebook pages, but other have suffered deletion of their Facebook accounts. The Avatars and Humans United group's charter says:
We are legion, the avatars who live and work as our digital selves. We may have other names and lives beyond our avatar forms but we live and work as identities that capture hearts and bond with millions. Avatars and Humans alike ask that Facebook continue allowing avatars to serve as primary profile pageholders so that we do not unnecessarily delete many hundreds of thousands of productive Facebook connectors. Do we ask all film stars to use their real names on Facebook, or any other media celebrity? What are positive network solutions that can come from the deletion and displacement of our friends the Avatars?
To join the avatar rights group click here.
Sophia
May 13th, 2009
Cute! I loved how his little dot eyes went back and forth. Great voice and Face Book well its so true. I just have one for my family who lives away and to keep up. I just loved this little animation..
Alyx Stoklitsky
May 13th, 2009
I saw this video months ago.
LOL
May 14th, 2009
yeah this has been a RUMOR for months, any FACT checking going on here? maybe a URL to the facebook page that says avatar accounts to be removed?
Two Worlds
May 14th, 2009
See, I thought you were joking about this, until I saw that douchenozzles like Bettina Tizzy and Hamlet Au actually signed up for all this. Sounds like SOMEONE’S jealous of Facebook’s popularity! It’s so hilarious reading Hamlet’s blog entry on this, and seeing everyone start to take up arms about how they “never trusted Facebook anyway”. What, because Facebook could buy and sell all of Linden Labs and all the commerce ever done in Second Life?
Two Worlds
May 14th, 2009
From some crazy person’s post in the Facebook group:
“There is something fundamentally flawed with a system that allows a handful of technoelites to have the power of life and death over millions of virtual individuals. It is extremely disturbing that companies like Linden Lab and Facebook are so willing to pull the trigger on virtual identities with complete disregard for the RL typist. Any attempt to curb this behavior has unresistingly resulted in responses such as “They are a business, they can do whatever they please” as if this somehow makes it ethically more okay to systematically assassinate an avatar.”
Let me summarize my response as such: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
It completely boggles the mind that there are people in the world who actually live like this–no, wait, strike that. I’ve seen enough of the Internet to know that it IS possible, and people can actually florish as such.
In other news...
May 14th, 2009
Oh god I fucking lol’d. I love that video.
Some Crazy Person
May 14th, 2009
Lolz @ Two Worlds
Just trying to do my best Prokofy impersonation. I practice in the mirror daily. <3
Mort Luckless
May 22nd, 2009
This video was hilarious. My friends and family just convinced me, after a good 5 years of refusal, to get a Faceborg account. I hate it, because resistance is fucking impossible.
Weed
Jan 21st, 2010
i don’t understand the video — i guess the vid must have been made a while ago when it was still fashionable to sneer at social networking sites? whatever, it seems arse about tit
facebook states quite plainly that it is primarily for people to keep in online contact with real life friends and family, and this is how most of the people i know use it — and they’re strict on the name thing — i had to send them passport + utility bills before they’d allow me to register an account in my own name
whereas sl discourages members from using their own names, which leaves them free to pursue their sex fantasies with strangers
and IMHO this is why Facebook is hugely popular all over the world (about 65,000,000 users online at any one time) and growing like crazy, while the number of sl residents online (as displayed on my login screen) seems, if anything, to have slowly decreased over the last two or three years to about 60,000
or have i missed something?
Senban Babii
Jan 21st, 2010
@Weed
“i had to send them passport + utility bills before they’d allow me to register an account in my own name”
Holy crap! I wouldn’t personally tell Facebook ANYTHING! I don’t personally feel that a Facebook page is worth proving who I am!
And yes, you’ve missed something here. You’re trying to compare apples and oranges, comparing Facebook and Second Life as if they are competitors in the same game when they are not.
One of the reasons why Facebook has continued to grow is the inclusion of metagames like Island Life and Mafia Wars. People aren’t logging in to share personal details, they’re logging in to play these games when they are at work (that’s my personal opinion based upon what I see every day). Second Life could actually learn a little from that point, by creating a variety of formal games/sports on the grid that people will log in to play and which they will want to follow via user-created videos and forums.
icallbullshit
Jan 21st, 2010
@ Senban
“People aren’t logging in to share personal details, they’re logging in to play these games when they are at work (that’s my personal opinion based upon what I see every day).”
Good thing you qualified your statement with the personal opinion part, because Facebook services millions of folks who don’t have a clue what SL is and who in fact DO SHARE loads of RL info and personal updates to their network of friends and associates, as well as play the gaming aspects – but then again, there’s plenty that don’t do the Farmville and Mafia Wars as well, or those that have but became bored with it in short order. Don’t underestimate the power of social networking via the Book with your clouded view of reality, tainted by cartoon delusions and blog-o-sphere arrogance.
Take the blinders off please – oh om·nip·o·tent one!