This week in English class, we talked about avatars in the first lesson on information technology. I took a moment to observe the avatars of my friends, which include landscapes, sports stars, selfies, and more. However, most people, including myself, choose an anime image as their avatar.
Currently, I have chosen this avatar from "Five Seconds to Start a Battle," featuring Bai Liu Qi, a person who excels in gaming and has quick thinking. The English textbook mentioned that avatars may reflect a part of your personality. When I first watched that anime, I thought he was cool and good-looking, so I now use it as my unified avatar for QQ, WeChat, and websites.
When we discussed what avatars everyone was using in class, we laughed at those who use selfies as their avatars. I found a research paper in the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Academic Journal Database that explores the cultural reasons why Chinese people don't use selfies as their official avatars:
- In a hierarchical social structure, there is a higher level of vigilance towards strangers.
- People value the judgment and opinions of others and fear that publicly displaying personal avatars may attract scrutiny and discussion from others.
- Emphasis is placed on spiritual selfhood and a tendency to express oneself through objects.
The research paper can be found here. Feel free to read it if you're interested.
I have the following questions regarding network avatars:
- Do we own the copyright to our avatars on QQ and WeChat?
- How are the avatars of senders obtained when we receive emails? (If it's possible to turn this into an API, can we improve the coverage of Cravatar?)