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How do you feel about people using their own pictures for OOC avatars?


Samantha
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We've had two people join in the past couple months who like to use their own pictures as OOC avatars. We don't have anything specifically banning it in the rules, but it makes me feel a little weird and I'm not sure why. 

 

How do you guys feel about people using pictures of themselves as avatars?

Edited by Samantha

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I have had someone ask me this before... but for a PB for their character 

 

I said no because it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable too, and in our rules we do ask for them to be "famous" individuals (although this is a very loose term, we'd just like to be able to google whoever the PB is to check age for appropriateness etc). I don't think I'd personally support it on my own board! 

~Suzi

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I actually use my own picture as my OOC avatar all of the time. I don't use my own picture here because I've been using avatars made by users here. As long as it's not provocative I don't mind personally.

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I'm not a fan. We aren't Facebook, you aren't posting your profile picture. It breaks some old person forum "rule" I've got in my head. 

 

That and I've only ever seen it happen, like I said in the other thread, when it's someone trying way too hard to "fit in," usually by sharing too much information too quickly.

 

If it isn't part of the forum culture, being the one person doing it strikes me as weird and kind of attention seeking... But I might be looking too far into it.

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Urgh. That makes me super uncomfortable. Like sitting here, read that, SQUIRM UNCOMFORTABLY IN MY CHAIR uncomfortable. Maybe it's because I keep my online life and real life separate, or because RP is about being someone else and bringing your real self into it seems entirely opposed to that. Maybe it's cuz I'm just ridiculously camera shy myself and I feel the awkwardness that I think THEY should feel for doing that. Maybe all of the above. But I dislike everything about that.

 

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If it isn't part of the forum culture, being the one person doing it strikes me as weird and kind of attention seeking... But I might be looking too far into it.

 

This also. And to expand on it, if it IS a part of the forum culture, I will not join that forum.

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Yea, I'm writing a story about people that arent me. You don't need to know anything about me to write with me. 

 

Learning about your fellows should happen naturally. Not in a "This is me! Everyone look!" Fashion. Hell, I've known @Kittenmitten for almost a decade. I have seen 2 pictures of her total. I don't need to see more. She is still my friend without that.

 

This got off in a tangent that isn't entirely related. Sorry!

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If somebody wants to wipe away some of their anonymity by using their self for their OOC pictures, that's their business. Not my monkeys, not my circus, and doesn't bother me in the slightest - just don't ask me to partake in it.

 

Many of us grew up in the infancy of the internet, where anonymity was sacred until you trusted the assured-to-be-a-predator-according-to-your-mom you were speaking with for a long time enough to reveal our real ages, our real locations, our faces, etc. It was a different "internet culture" back then. One day, eventually, RPing will get the mainstream debut that Cosplay did - and then our faces will be plastered as "Role-famous" and we'll be having weird novella/tabletop mishmosh writing contests and patreons for supporting our game servers and shiznit. 

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Wow....I didn't realize that so many of you were against this! Personally I don't mind as long as it isn't like openly gross, like racist or political (sorta). But I am friends both IRL and on FB with so many of my players that their faces and voices are half the fun!

 

 

Hell sometimes I'll even wake up to boobs from a wild night out.

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"Everyone has been doing so much soul searching during all of this,

and I'm just over here drawing pics of my character's dicks."

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To each their own!

 

I do not use my real face because I loathe cameras and they hate me even more than I hate them. However, I do draw the line at people using their own face as their characters' faces. That makes me wonder if they don't get the dividing line between RP and reality. Are they merely playing a character or are they totally inserting themselves into the story? And, I'm not talking about that little bit of ourselves that sneak into our characters and their stories.

 

So, OOC avatars = whatever floats someone's boat (except for lewd and disgusting ones, of course). IC avatars = no.

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It's up to the person, really. On twitter, quite a few people use them in their OOC accounts, so I'm quite used to it. I personally wouldn't use them myself, though. One of the reasons why I stay away from Facebook is because I don't want to post lots of pictures of myself all over the place. I like my privacy. My partner doesn't seem to get why I don't want to post pictures of myself online and it's quite simple, really - it's an invasion of privacy, you're more likely to open yourself up to trolling and stalkers if people know your face and although it was years ago, I was bullied a lot at school  ) and I don't want people I don't like from that time finding me online and I have other personal reasons for not wanting my face out there. (When I used my Facebook account which I'd made for uni to get to know people doing the same course before I started, I had some unpleasantness with a cousin who'd found me on there.) Cyberbullying seems to be more personal when it comes from people you know/knew in RL and I want to enjoy my time online. Of course, if I needed a photo of myself in professional capacity then I wouldn't mind sharing them then, but that's a different matter. I guess being a part of the older generation of internet users I've gotten used to not having my face out there so part of it is probably habit.

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On an OOC account I don't see an issue with it if that's what they want and if the admins of the site are okay with that.

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Just to add more, I have always found it strange. I was RPing when I was 13, over a decade ago. I would have died if my face was public! Hell, I hate facebook now! I feel it's a bit creepy, and just... too much in your face about things. I would feel weird if my character was having a relationship with a real person. It would feel like someone is being ingenuine and I couldn't be convinced it wasn't me. There's a layer of intimacy that I just don't want to enter.  I'm good with a character between us.

 

I have seen people fall for other people's characters (it wasn't pretty and kinda scary), and I wouldn't want someone's REAL FACE to be attached to that fantasy. Just... no. I'm good. Thanks though!

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If it were an OoC avatar, I would be weirded out, but I wouldn't necessarily prohibit it.  But I do feel like sometimes unintentionally I judge people based upon their appearances / camera skills, which is pretty shitty.

 

If it's an IC avatar, no.  It isn't allowed on this part of the internet because back in the day when people did it, the persons were self-inserts.  They'd take things way too personally, even though they swore up and down that everything was okay.

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30 minutes ago, Uaithne said:

(...)

If it's an IC avatar, no.  It isn't allowed on this part of the internet because back in the day when people did it, the persons were self-inserts.  They'd take things way too personally, even though they swore up and down that everything was okay.

 

I kind of agree to this. It seems like, the more someone link themselves to their characters, the more chance there is the person will be arguably too emotionally linked to their character. I'm not saying everyone putting some of themselves in their characters is bad, but someone unable to tell between the fiction and the reality is at risk of taking things personally. 

 

Someone using their own picture for a character seems to send the message "there is nothing else in the world I'd like to play but myself" . Alright, but what if yourself have to be in a conflicting situation? Or be shown under a bad light somehow? Can it be guaranteed the player will not take it personal and take offense? And will the player try to put the character in every of their dream scenarios and daydreams to satisfy themselves? Even if it's impossible or overpowering the character?

If they play on a site where danger happens, where folk can become enemy, where stories are not about daily life, then maybe the self-insert tangent are just bound to cause drama.

 

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6 hours ago, CovertSphinx said:

If somebody wants to wipe away some of their anonymity by using their self for their OOC pictures, that's their business. Not my monkeys, not my circus, and doesn't bother me in the slightest.

 

Exactly. I have seen people doing it and I have nothing against it. The OOC account is supposed to be themselves, so instead of being an elf, a cat or an unicorn, it is more normal to attach a face to the name. It is human to want it, because I think this is how people function, they want to attach a face to a name, and a few basic knowledge, which doesn't mean sharing as much as one could potentially stalk you (e.g. the country or the town where are you from is ok, the address isn't. A name or pet name is OK, the whole family name+ given names isn't.)

 

 I don't do it (but I share photos of me sometimes, so people can attach a face to the name).

 

For characters, definitely not, because the link between the character and the OOC person can be blurred and things happening in character can be taken personally. Even if there would be a case when I could theoretically make an exception (I say THEORETICALLY, ie don't think it would actually happen), namely... if you cosplay/ reenact (still having problems with understanding the difference) the character you are writing about, and you have a picture in costume.

Edited by Elena
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