Connect with us

Beauty

Virtual body-shaming: Why the metaverse won’t fix our IRL beauty standards

Published

on

metaverse
Avatars are nothing new — and nor is the idea that we care about how we look online.
As the drive towards immersive virtual worlds, or “metaverses,” gathers pace, personalized digital avatars have become more pervasive thanks to games like Fortnite and Roblox. But on the online platform Second Life, users have been able to create and customize their own digital appearances for almost two decades. And it was here that, in 2017, a body-shaming scandal laid bare an uncomfortable truth: Our real-life beauty standards will, invariably, follow us into the metaverse.
The incident began when an in-game fashion brand allegedly sent out offensive fat-shaming messages on a group channel. The label then embarked on a bizarre crusade against plus-size women. At its virtual store, which sold digital clothing aimed at thin avatars, the brand erected a “no fat chicks” sign alongside an image of a model wearing a crop top marked “no fat.”
Debate in the Second Life community ensued, and fuller-figured avatars began arriving at the store in protest. Some brandished customized placards (“I love you skinny, I love you fat,” read one, “diversity is all of that!”) while staging a sit-in demonstration.
As writer and longtime Second Life user Wagner James Au noted on his blog at the time, the foot traffic may have worsened matters by boosting the store’s visibility on the platform. The offending label’s owner certainly thought so. Another sign appeared thanking protesters for “promoting my brand, my store and my products… for free.”
Like most online flare-ups, the controversy died down within a few days. But according to Au, whose book “Why the Metaverse Matters” publishes next year, ongoing debates about Second Life’s customizable avatar shapes revealed a troubling undercurrent among certain users.
“People were saying, ‘You can be anything, you can be as beautiful as you want — or can afford — to be, so why are you choosing to be fat?'” he recalled in a video interview from California. “They got angry.”

Shifting standards for avatars

Things hadn’t always been this way. In fact, during the early years of Second Life, many users didn’t even look human, making it difficult to judge them against real-life standards.
“Avatar types used to be much more diverse,” said Au. “You were just as likely to find someone who was a fairy, or looked like an anthropomorphic animal or a robot — or some other fantastic combination of various identities — rather than what you might call a ‘Sims’ avatar that looks like a very attractive person in their 20s.”
The shift was, partly, technological. In 2011, amid improving graphics and processing power, Second Life allowed users to create 3D skins, or “meshes,” that could be uploaded to the platform. As a result, avatars’ appearances became increasingly realistic. On the one hand, this gave users more freedom to create characters that reflected what they really looked like — including those who preferred to appear curvier or heavier-set. On the other, it marked what Au called a “Pandora’s box” moment.
“It shifted both the culture and the economy around avatars,” he said. “Up until then, there was definitely much more tolerance for diversity of avatar types… But putting a premium on highly realistic, beautiful avatars amplified existing prejudices that we took from the real world into the virtual world.”
For those users whose avatars fall “outside the norm,” incidents of harassment still happen “all the time,” Au added. “Anyone with a large avatar is going to get at least a few nasty comments.”
If metaverses represent the internet’s next evolution, then platforms like Second Life — often dubbed the first metaverse — offer lessons for our digital future. For one, new platforms must decide how realistic avatars can be, and how much freedom users are given to alter their appearances.
Around 70% of US consumers, from generations X to Z, consider their digital identity to be “important” according to a 2021 study by The Business of Fashion. But, by empowering people to accurately recreate themselves, platforms may open the door to the bullying, harassment and even racism that unfolds in real life if users’ appearances don’t conform with prevailing beauty standards.
On Roblox, conversely, characters have a distinctly Lego-like appearance with highly simplistic faces, while Fortnite avatars often take the form of bipedal animals or robots. Decentraland avatars appear far more conventionally human. And while Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has yet to unveil its full metaverse vision, the firm also appears to be opting for comparatively realistic figures. (Although cartoonish, the widely publicized Zuckerberg avatar is unmistakably him.)
Mark Zuckerberg adjusts an avatar of himself during the virtual Facebook Connect event, where the company announced its rebranding as Meta last October.

Mark Zuckerberg adjusts an avatar of himself during the virtual Facebook Connect event, where the company announced its rebranding as Meta last October. Credit: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Despite his experiences on Second Life, Au believes that the vast majority of online users want their virtual selves to be either “an idealized version of what they look like, or a completely different persona.”
“That’s why I’m kind of astounded that Meta is going on the assumption that you want to look like who you look like in real life,” Au said.
There is currently little consensus on the matter. How we choose to present ourselves in the metaverse may also depend on what we’re doing there. Socializing with friends and conducting work meetings, for instance, might call for significantly different avatars.
It may also vary between demographic groups. In a study published by the journal Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, two Clemson University professors found that current virtual reality users “tend to present themselves consistently with their offline identity” when it came to physical features such as skin color and body shape. But this was particularly true of the study’s non-White participants, the researchers found.
“For (non-White users), presenting ethnicity is fundamental to create unique self-presentation in social VR,” the authors wrote, adding that just like in the real world, these avatars could be subject to social stigmas.

‘Freedom in abstraction’

From plus-size runways to genderless makeup, old beauty ideals are increasingly being challenged in today’s world. Eradicating them entirely from the real world is no simple task. But might there be a chance to sidestep these standards in virtual reality?
For artist and beauty futurist Alex Box, the metaverse offers an opportunity to tear down existing aesthetic conventions and rethink how we present ourselves.
“It’s very hard for people to imagine who they are without a body,” she said on a call from the Cotswolds region of England. “It’s a very different set of rules and ways of connecting with your identity if you say, ‘You’re just a shape, or you’re just an object.’
“But obviously, the more you go towards the abstract, the less you go towards body shaming, body logic, boundaries and ultimately everything that’s been forced upon us from the beginning of time about the rules of our bodies and autonomy. So, there’s freedom in abstraction,” she said, explaining that some people may opt for “a representation… of their energy, of their believed personhood, (or) something that is an extension of themselves.”
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Beauty

Introducing Content mode for easier collaboration

Published

on

By

Introducing Content mode for easier collaboration

Introducing Content mode

With the new “Content mode” available today, teams can collaborate easier than ever.

An insight about content update from our users

It has been a pleasure learning about the challenges faced by today’s teams through our user community.

The importance of keeping website content current is growing. The process usually begins with Designers and Freelancers creating the perfect design, based on today’s content needs. As time passes, content needs evolve, and Marketing and Client teams want to keep the site updated.

In spite of this, updating is not an easy task. If teams are using CMSes like WordPress, Marketing and Client teams have to go to a backend which looks nothing like the actual site. If teams are using website builders, the myriad of controls are nothing but confusing, despite often all one wants to change is just the text or image.

Updating the update process

When teams build their sites on STUDIO, there is now a new mode available in Design Editor – “Content mode.”

With Content mode, Designers and Freelancers can ensure layouts, animations and other configurations are kept intact, while Marketers and Clients can edit text and images at any time, directly on the page. No abstract backend, and no stress of breaking the layout.

How to get started

Get started in your team with 3 simple steps.

(1) Add Marketing or Client teams to your project

(2) Invite them to toggle on “Content mode,” in the bottom left of the page. Or press “C” as a keyboard shortcut.

(3) Enjoy the flexibility of editing text, images and icons directly on the page, with the layout kept intact

And here you go! If you have any questions, tweet us @studio or give us a shoutout on Discord. Happy creating!

Continue Reading

Beauty

Has your Ryanair flight been cancelled? A guide to your rights

There are many ways to get to Montenegro Adriatic Coast, my taxi driver assured me, raising his voice over a chorus of horns that angrily saluted his laissez-faire attitude toward lane use during morning rush-hour traffic in Belgrade. ‘But it makes no sense to take the train.’ He weaved through less aggressive vehicles like a skier clearing slalom gates. A cold, grey autumn rain began to fall harder, drops beading down my window, as the main railway station came into view.

Published

on

By

There are many ways to get to Montenegro’s Adriatic Coast, my taxi driver assured me, raising his voice over a chorus of horns that angrily saluted his laissez-faire attitude toward lane use during morning rush-hour traffic in Belgrade. ‘But it makes no sense to take the train.’ He weaved through less aggressive vehicles like a skier clearing slalom gates. A cold, grey autumn rain began to fall harder, drops beading down my window, as the main railway station came into view.

‘Let me take you to the airport,’ he sounded genuinely concerned. ‘You will be in the sea and in the sun and with a beer in half an hour. This thing you are doing, it will take all day … and into the night.’ He finally relented as we pulled up to the curb: ‘At least buy water, sandwiches, and toilet paper.’

The cabbie left me in front of the crenellated railway station, a faded Habsburg-yellow throwback opened in 1884. He was already speeding off to advise another tourist before I could throw my bag over my shoulder. Inside, I found the ticket office. The woman behind the glass informed me that the trip from Belgrade, Serbia, to Bar, Montenegro – on the Adriatic edge of the Balkan Peninsula – takes 12 hours. It costs 21 euros (there would be an additional three-euro charge for a seat reservation). ‘Yes, there is a bakery nearby,’ she said and pointed. ‘It is behind you. The shop for water and tissues is next to it.’ She slid the window closed, stood, picked up her pack of cigarettes, and disappeared.

[bs-quote quote=”You have to be the best of whatever you are, but successful, cool actresses come in all shapes and sizes.” style=”style-8″ align=”right” author_name=”Jessica Alba” author_job=”American Actress” author_avatar=”https://liqastudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/brilliance-quote-avatar.jpg”]

That sense of old-world drama would serve me well, I would soon learn, along this route. On the outskirts of the Serbian capital – as I settled into my seat in a weathered, six-person cabin – we passed Topčider Station, where the hulking locomotives from Yugoslav leader Marshal Tito’s famous Blue Train are stored. The behemoths sat dishevelled, graffitied, but still regal and almost lifelike, wishing me a safe passage to the outer lands. Within an hour, the tangle of urban metal and concrete unravelled, and the countryside spread out in all directions with the urgency of a jailbreak. The sun came out as wet, emerald-green hummocks began to play leapfrog across the vista, rolling until they dove out of sight over the horizon.

Though the Belgrade–Bar line doesn’t have a sexy moniker (like the Royal Scotsman or Rocky Mountaineer), the Yugoslav Flyer would be appropriate. When construction began on the 476km railway in 1951, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was in its infancy: a tenuous post-WWII cadre of states on the Balkan Peninsula’s western half. By the time the route opened in 1976 – complete with 254 tunnels and 234 bridges winding down from the Pannonian Plain to the island-studded Adriatic Sea – the country had implanted itself as a geopolitical force and a synapse between the West and the Soviet Union.

Yugoslavia has since splintered into seven nations. The railway, thankfully, endures, connecting Serbia to Montenegro with a brief blip across Bosnia & Hercegovina’s eastern border. But the line’s existence represents more than just a continued, now international, transport option. These tracks are the Balkans – and a lifeline to a swath of land where cultures have intertwined since before history. Here, the train takes adventurers across vistas crisscrossed by Greeks and Illyrians, as well as the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Along the way, visitors have a literal window onto a living museum frozen in time.

Those natural exhibits were on full display as we rumbled through the foothills of the Dinaric Alps in the southwestern corner of Serbia. When we crossed the border into Montenegro, the museum’s lineup of canvases – pristine panoramas and landscapes – changed again. The Western Balkans’ rotating collection now included towering mountains and canyons that engulfed us whole.

‘I had no idea what to expect,’ said Colin Smith, a fellow passenger and UK native. Outside the window, an old couple leaned against pitchforks next to haystacks. Behind them, vegetable gardens and a small-but-dense orchard of plum trees surrounded a stone farmhouse. ‘But I am so surprised by the beauty: the mountains, steep ravines and endless drops.’

Before I went to sleep that night, I remembered my taxi driver: ‘But it makes no sense to take the train.’ Lying in bed, I could hear the sea washing onto the shore outside my rented apartment’s window. If I ever saw him again, I would make sure to tell the cabbie he was right: a flight would have been much faster and easier, and more sterile.

Book tickets (and separate necessary reservations) at the station a day in advance. There are 1st- and 2nd-class options. Night-train passengers can choose between couchettes or sleepers (with two or three beds). A one-way ticket (from Belgrade) costs 21 euros; a reservation is necessary and costs an additional three euros. Second-class couchettes on night trains cost an additional six euros. A bed in a three-bed sleeper is 15 euros; a bed in a two-bed sleeper is 20 euros.

The Belgrade–Bar railway line runs twice per day, in both directions. From Belgrade, the train departs at 9:10am and at 9:10pm; the trip takes 12 hour.

Continue Reading

Beauty

Anchovies Make Everything Taste Better

There are many ways to get to Montenegro Adriatic Coast, my taxi driver assured me, raising his voice over a chorus of horns that angrily saluted his laissez-faire attitude toward lane use during morning rush-hour traffic in Belgrade. ‘But it makes no sense to take the train.’ He weaved through less aggressive vehicles like a skier clearing slalom gates. A cold, grey autumn rain began to fall harder, drops beading down my window, as the main railway station came into view.

Published

on

By

There are many ways to get to Montenegro’s Adriatic Coast, my taxi driver assured me, raising his voice over a chorus of horns that angrily saluted his laissez-faire attitude toward lane use during morning rush-hour traffic in Belgrade. ‘But it makes no sense to take the train.’ He weaved through less aggressive vehicles like a skier clearing slalom gates. A cold, grey autumn rain began to fall harder, drops beading down my window, as the main railway station came into view.

‘Let me take you to the airport,’ he sounded genuinely concerned. ‘You will be in the sea and in the sun and with a beer in half an hour. This thing you are doing, it will take all day … and into the night.’ He finally relented as we pulled up to the curb: ‘At least buy water, sandwiches, and toilet paper.’

The cabbie left me in front of the crenellated railway station, a faded Habsburg-yellow throwback opened in 1884. He was already speeding off to advise another tourist before I could throw my bag over my shoulder. Inside, I found the ticket office. The woman behind the glass informed me that the trip from Belgrade, Serbia, to Bar, Montenegro – on the Adriatic edge of the Balkan Peninsula – takes 12 hours. It costs 21 euros (there would be an additional three-euro charge for a seat reservation). ‘Yes, there is a bakery nearby,’ she said and pointed. ‘It is behind you. The shop for water and tissues is next to it.’ She slid the window closed, stood, picked up her pack of cigarettes, and disappeared.

[bs-quote quote=”You have to be the best of whatever you are, but successful, cool actresses come in all shapes and sizes.” style=”style-8″ align=”right” author_name=”Jessica Alba” author_job=”American Actress” author_avatar=”https://liqastudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/brilliance-quote-avatar.jpg”]

That sense of old-world drama would serve me well, I would soon learn, along this route. On the outskirts of the Serbian capital – as I settled into my seat in a weathered, six-person cabin – we passed Topčider Station, where the hulking locomotives from Yugoslav leader Marshal Tito’s famous Blue Train are stored. The behemoths sat dishevelled, graffitied, but still regal and almost lifelike, wishing me a safe passage to the outer lands. Within an hour, the tangle of urban metal and concrete unravelled, and the countryside spread out in all directions with the urgency of a jailbreak. The sun came out as wet, emerald-green hummocks began to play leapfrog across the vista, rolling until they dove out of sight over the horizon.

Though the Belgrade–Bar line doesn’t have a sexy moniker (like the Royal Scotsman or Rocky Mountaineer), the Yugoslav Flyer would be appropriate. When construction began on the 476km railway in 1951, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was in its infancy: a tenuous post-WWII cadre of states on the Balkan Peninsula’s western half. By the time the route opened in 1976 – complete with 254 tunnels and 234 bridges winding down from the Pannonian Plain to the island-studded Adriatic Sea – the country had implanted itself as a geopolitical force and a synapse between the West and the Soviet Union.

Yugoslavia has since splintered into seven nations. The railway, thankfully, endures, connecting Serbia to Montenegro with a brief blip across Bosnia & Hercegovina’s eastern border. But the line’s existence represents more than just a continued, now international, transport option. These tracks are the Balkans – and a lifeline to a swath of land where cultures have intertwined since before history. Here, the train takes adventurers across vistas crisscrossed by Greeks and Illyrians, as well as the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Along the way, visitors have a literal window onto a living museum frozen in time.

Those natural exhibits were on full display as we rumbled through the foothills of the Dinaric Alps in the southwestern corner of Serbia. When we crossed the border into Montenegro, the museum’s lineup of canvases – pristine panoramas and landscapes – changed again. The Western Balkans’ rotating collection now included towering mountains and canyons that engulfed us whole.

‘I had no idea what to expect,’ said Colin Smith, a fellow passenger and UK native. Outside the window, an old couple leaned against pitchforks next to haystacks. Behind them, vegetable gardens and a small-but-dense orchard of plum trees surrounded a stone farmhouse. ‘But I am so surprised by the beauty: the mountains, steep ravines and endless drops.’

Before I went to sleep that night, I remembered my taxi driver: ‘But it makes no sense to take the train.’ Lying in bed, I could hear the sea washing onto the shore outside my rented apartment’s window. If I ever saw him again, I would make sure to tell the cabbie he was right: a flight would have been much faster and easier, and more sterile.

Book tickets (and separate necessary reservations) at the station a day in advance. There are 1st- and 2nd-class options. Night-train passengers can choose between couchettes or sleepers (with two or three beds). A one-way ticket (from Belgrade) costs 21 euros; a reservation is necessary and costs an additional three euros. Second-class couchettes on night trains cost an additional six euros. A bed in a three-bed sleeper is 15 euros; a bed in a two-bed sleeper is 20 euros.

The Belgrade–Bar railway line runs twice per day, in both directions. From Belgrade, the train departs at 9:10am and at 9:10pm; the trip takes 12 hour.

Continue Reading

Trending