A Habbo Identity

I’d have to say that Identity is hands down my favorite thing to study on these virtual worlds. Not only because there can or cannot be many options on what to do with identity, but because of what people choose to do/use as their identities.
On Habbo Hotel, like most virtual worlds, you can choose whether to be male or female. However, a difference from other virtual worlds (or so I’ve heard ) is that on Habbo Hotel, you can choose to be a female with a mohawk and facial hair or a male with long hair and jewelry. You can also change the color of you skin, hair, and clothing. The one thing that it does not allow you to do is change your weight. However, the fact that you can choose to have facial hair as a woman seems to be a big deal, because if I remember correctly from class, you could only be a female in Barbie World.
Some of the more different things that I have seen on Habbo Hotel are a lot of guys wearing sunglasses and hats or females with ties on; and a lot of girls that are way ‘underdressed.’ My personal character has on a tshirt and shorts, and kind of looks like me, so I can’t imagine that half of these girls, many of which I am assuming are either way young or suffer from low self esteem, actually walk around like the way that they have their avatars dressed. I also find it interesting that these avatars that are dressed in skimpy outfits seem to be the ones that get ‘hit on’ the most.
While on Habbo Hotel, I tried looking for rooms that were gender specific, but I couldn’t find any. I did find sexuality specific though. The name of the room was something along the lines of Bi, Les and Gays. And when I walked into the room, it was very bright, in all rainbow colors and butterflies and fairys flying around. It was quite interesting, but that is what the people in that room were comfortable identifying with. I also found that there are several rooms dedicated to the Marines or Army affiliated people. I thought that was pretty neat. I also found some rooms that were strictly for British people or strictly for dating purposes. Now, I can’t say that I would ever try and date someone through a virtual world, but I guess if this makes people happy, then more power to you! I also found a room, and couldn’t stop laughing when I walked in, and it was called Ghetto. And avatar in there was dressed ‘gangster’ like and talking in slang lingo that I couldn’t quite interpret. So I suppose there, that people are associating with an identity that they are comfortable with, that being Ghetto.
Another thing I couldn’t believe is what people are willing to say to you on these virtual worlds. I had a kid send me a private message asking where I was from, how old I was, if I was single and if I wanted to dot he dirty. I would NEVER in a million years walk up to some random person on the street and ask that question. It was kind of really super creepy, so I told him he was disgusting and got offline. The nice thing for certain people is that they can hide their true identity online and not worry about censoring themselves when talking to people. Which in my opinion, isn’t always a good thing.
As you can see, Habbo Hotel has many option in ways to form your identity. From the sex you choose to be to the way you choose to develop your avatars gender, you can pretty much be your true self online. You can be a male with female clothing, or be a female with facial hair. You can enter rooms for gays, lesbians and bisexuals, you can go into a room strictly for British characters or choose a room for the military people. You have many choices, and I think that in a way, the virutal world scene can be a good outlet for people who feel that they can’t truly be themselves around friends or family. Online, they can be whoever they want.