Wagner James Au / New World Notes

“A friend introduced me [to Second Life] a few months ago," Billie Echo (above) tells me, "It’s quite interesting.” The inspiration for her avatar's appearance (also above) is also interesting:

"Actually, I was going for a tall vitiligo queen but a lot of wonderful mistakes were made. But I don't regret it." (Her father is from Benin, where many people have vitiligo.) Now, she wants "to use this platform to spread awareness about vitiligo and albinism."

Billie Echo's SL/RL photo is one of dozens now on Facebook with the tag #slvsrl, launched in Holger Gilruth's Facebook group for SLers, featuring pics of avatars alongside their real life owners. Displayed with their permission, here are ten of my favorites, featuring the owners' explanation for their avatar's appearance:

Domenico Mariotti on his avatar: “It's done with high quality components but at the same time it's very simple, a natural boy without anything ‘strange’, relaxed and casual most of the time. He has no tattoos, no piercings… [I look] stranger in real life. (Have all my back tattooed, pierced nipples, etc.)”

Joel Tamas on his avatar: “The thing I am most grateful for about SL is bringing my band Red Heaven, and my music to friends and followers and sharing it with them. It's been a real gift for me… It's been a huge source of joy in my life for more than a decade. My promotional material for my band includes me wearing a lot of goggles and ridiculous outfits, and the masks I wear on my avatar sort of reflect that. I try to harmonize the look of the avatar with my RL look so that the official photos look somewhat alike.”

Pinki Crystal on her avatar: Oh I wanted my avatar to be like my real face. My clothes reflect what I would like to wear in real life. To sum up, I wanted an atypical and unique physique that would not be identical to the others. An androgyne style.”

Khalissa Raine on her avatar: Originally I wanted it to be like my IMVU character but nobody seemed to know how to do that for me. So I ended up getting it custom-shaped by this chick and I fell in love with the face shape… But my avi looks like me in real life; was not at all intentional. Like one day I put a picture of myself and my avi together and was like, Oh my god they look alike.”

Nini Ben on his avatar: “[It’s an] attempt to make it appear from the current generation [while evoking] nostalgia for the past.”

Elise Enzo on her avatar: “[She’s] how I see myself in my mind… pretty much how my avatar looks and behaves. Sexy and playful. Unique, stylish, confident yet insecure. A Gemini for sure.”

Elffir Rehs on her avatar: "I wanted to be a bit 'unique', but also be as true to my real life image as I can. I'm not really looking for romance, I am mainly in Second Life now for one of my SL family of 10+ years [who's a real life] friend."

Parker Riley on her avatar: “Honestly, I just wanted to make her pretty. I have always had an appreciation for nice looking avatars. I had no intentions of having her look like me IRL but somehow she kinda does. Which I didn't really notice until this #slvsrl challenge.”

Jocelynn Adeline Revna on her avatar: “My inspiration to my avatar was to not stray too far from my own resemblance. After all, she is me! I changed her eye color because I’ve always wanted different colored eyes than brown. That about sums it up.”

See the rest of the #slvsrl contributions here. More avatar profiles featured here soon!