This week, we will be exploring the theme of self expression in virtual worlds. Throughout time, games have been produced to further an individuals freedoms and lets them express themselves in different ways. Before, people were usually limited to one outfit for a character in a video game and that was usually their default wardrobe. Games wouldn’t allow you to personalize them to your liking and would limit the user to just sticking to that basic outfit.
Recently, times have changed. There have been plenty of new video games that have been developed through the years that allows its users to personalize and customize their character to fit whatever they’d like. These new video games allow people to express themselves through these video games. They allow people to change wardrobe whenever they’d like, allows them to add facial feistiness if they’d like, and even gives them the ability of naming their characters.
In my post, I will show you three different virtual worlds that allow its users to explore and showcase their own style through their characters.
The first virtual world is Grand Theft Auto (GTA). This game allows its users to begin with a character that the user gets to customize, ranging from things like choice of shoes, bottoms, and shirts. It also allows its users to change their characters skin color, hair choice, facial hair preference, and allows their users to add things like piercing or tattoos to their characters. The artists I chose to grab a picture of wanted to show his favorite sports car that he got customized. He said he customized his character to his liking and tried to make him as similar as he could to his own style in clothing.
In the second virtual world I visited, I got to meet a user that goes by “geminif03” in Animal Crossing. In this virtual world, the same theme of self expression is available. The users are able to customize their character and are able to change their avatars dress wear.
In the last virtual world I visited, I got to see a user that goes by “Santabanta56” in the Roblox world. This user had a small chat conversation with me. They enjoyed wearing trendy clothes and were influence by music artists like Ariana Grande.
Clothing and other forms of self expression oftentime are overlooked and excluded from art, however, I believe clothing and style deals with art. These pieces of clothing are planned and produced by actual designers and are made with specific thought. Making clothing pieces itself is art to me, and I found it amazing how video games now-a-days allow its users to explore self exploration and identity. People feel more connected to a character online when they are able to customize them to fit what they’d like. I find it cool how these virtual worlds also allow their users to make other forms of art, like allowing them to customize their cars, build their own houses, make paintings, and plenty of more things.
#1 – GTA 
#2 – Animal Crossing 
#3 – Roblox
Edwin Hernandez 