Beefy!!! (or the freedom to be what you want to be)

Using this pic I took some days ago I’d like to do two reflections, one about avatars, the other about sense of humour.

Yes, I’m quite beefy in SL. So what? I mean, most of the times I’m the guy you know, and sometimes I’m a girl, a tiny German Shepherd, a robot, a Japanese “manga” character or whatever. We all have the power in Second Life to look as we want to look, using the “Appearance” tools or with “Attachments”. We can create our own appearance, or we can use creations of other residents and mix them to create your look. It can be something common or exclusive, something “real” or fantastic, “furry” or “skinny”, an animal, an apple, a “cheezburger”…

But… is no that easy, because there will be always someone to criticise, and you have no possibility to avoid the critics. And I’m not talking about a ”purely aesthetic” critic (kinda “I think this is ugly” or “I don’t like it”), I’m talking about something different.

If you wear a furry avatar some people will say you are a pervert and a zoophile (or a freak), if you are a man (or a woman) and you choose to wear a female (or male) shape some will say you are a deviant and that you have some problem with your gender identity (and, of course, a freak), if you like “dark style”, “goth”, you like blood as a fantasy you are a freak.

As you can see there is a lot of reasons to be called “a freak”, much more than i wrote above. Anyway, if you choose to have a Second Life quite near to your RL, or like a fantasy of RL, you can be called a “boring person that doesn’t life his/her fantasies”, you can be called a “Barbie” or a “Ken”.

In short, if you decide, for example, to play some RP then some “non RP people” will say you are a freak, but if you decide not to play some RP then some “RP people” will say you are a freak. Do what you do you will be a freak for someone.

So my doubt is… why the hell we need to criticise the rest, the ones are not like us? Why to criticise the difference when is what make people special and interesting?

About sense of humour, well, part of the reason to make that image was to laugh about myself. I think is REALLY good not to take oneself too seriously, specially becuase when we take ourselves woo seriously we became ridiculous.

So my two conclusions are:

Respect other’s choices as you want yours to be respected, and start laughing (first at you… then at the others, but always with respect ).