Beauty Surpassed

I've had occasion in this blog to discuss Asian avatars--Second Life's assumption that everyone is white, the difficulty of creating an Asian avatar, and the deployment of my race in exploitative ways (promoting stereotypes to enjoy a certain kind of cybersex). It's been almost a year since I wrote that post, and yet I can count the number of Asian avatars I have seen on my two hands. We are rare. And moreover, most of them, not to put too fine a point on it, suck. They are often ugly, revealing more what white people see in Asians (apparently very small eyes and rather odd skin tones, as if they take "yellow" a bit too literally).

Well, all of these terrible Asian avatars naturally have given me a little sense of pride in my own avatar, perhaps misplaced, because I at least believe that mine doesn't suck. Last night, though, I encountered an avatar that was not only Asian, but beautifully and tastefully so (the outfit was a little iffy, but it was a costume party). I even have a shot of me looking jealous in the background:



I have been out-done! In RL, there's only so much I can do about my looks (creative uses of hair dye are among my favorite tricks). But in SL, I'd gotten used to (and complacent) about being the prettiest Asian girl, competition being what it is. Alas, Nessa, you diminish me! Still, I am who I am (even in SL, whatever that means) and don't plan on any changes now. I do have a few Linden dollars in my account, so perhaps a few new outfits would provide consolation.