Category: Avatars and Identity

LGBT Second Life Users Celebrate Pride With Tributes to the Freedom of Virtual World Expression & Identity

June 10, 2021

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting Pitch Wyld’s “Hey Sailor” captures the exuberance of Pride. It is an homage to the “V-J Day in Times Square” shot when World War Two was finally over. A less-famous shot of those four pictures taken that day shows the woman punching…
Send LGBT-Themed Avatar Pics to Our #Virtualpride Challenge By June 9th!

May 24, 2021

"She kissed the Captain" by Cadwyn Daffyd Important update: We've extended the deadline to our #Virtualpride Challenge to June 9th! Here's the details: To celebrate Pride Month, create virtual world images that express your LGBT pride. In the image description, tell us what your activity in the virtual world means to your real life as…
Celebrate Pride Month By Sending Us Virtual World Images & Stories for Our #Virtualpride Challenge!

May 14, 2021

"She kissed the Captain" by Cadwyn Daffyd To celebrate Pride Month, create virtual world images that express your LGBT pride — then in the image description, tell us what your activity in the virtual world means to your real life as an LGBT person. Tag Cajsa on Flickr and add the hashtag #Virtualpride. Our favorite…
Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular in VRChat: A Philosophical Explanation

March 16, 2021

In this new video from Strasz (previously featured here), the VRChat sociologist deep dives into the obsession with staring at one's avatar in virtual mirrors. (It's such a popular VRChat pastime, we devoted two posts and an original comic to it.) Heavily citing French postmodernist theory ("Foucault* would have a field day in VRChat"), Strasz…
How to Deep Fake Your SL Avatar Into an Expressive Popstar With Wombo AI

March 10, 2021

Well this is the most expressive I’ve ever seen my avatar or for that many any other avatar in the virtual world (don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me): This thanks to Wombo.AI, a new smartphone app that’s designed to convert a RL selfie photo into a lip-syncing popstar via some pretty impressive deep fake machine…
Tutorial: How to Turn Second Life Avatars Into “Real” People With Artbreeder

February 26, 2021

Want to turn a Second Life avatar pic into the "photo" of their real life analog? Watch this Artbreeder tutorial from Ugleh Ulrik, the SL creator who first started the whole buzz around using the AI-driven platform to transform avatars. "I do a lot of experimenting with new AI tech," Ulrik tells me, "and once…
I’m Mesmerized by These Avatars Turned Into “Real” People Via ArtBreeder AI

February 24, 2021

My post last week on Artbreeder, which uses Generative Adversarial Networks to create "children" of an original image, generated a mini-burst of excitement among many in the SL community, who started experimenting with the process to turn pictures of their avatars into "real" people. And the results are pretty mesmerizing! Above is one by Devin Vaughn,…
Turn an Avatar Image Into a “Photo” of Their RL Twin Via AI-Driven ArtBreeder

February 19, 2021

The dapper AF avatar on your left belongs to TheVirtualGent on Reddit; the "photo" on your right is what he might look like in real life — a process made possible via Artbreeder, which uses Generative Adversarial Networks to create "children" of an original image along user-selected parameters. This particular "photo" was created by a…
Real Life Photo or Virtual Image? Tiago’s Tutorial To Make It Hard to Tell

February 17, 2021

‌Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting The pictures by Flickr artist Tiago that I featured last week, especially the one above, sparked some discussion of whether they were taken in Second Life. or in real life. Can you guess? Click below to find out — and find out how…
Will Real Celebrities Expand Their Brand With AI-Based Clones Like This?

February 16, 2021

What you're watching above is a video from social media influencer Taryn Southern, except not quite: It's a "clone" of Ms. Southern, created via an AI platform called HourOne. "We take a small sample of video footage (ideally captured in a studio, as we did with Taryn), and use our proprietary AI algorithms and generative…

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LGBT Second Life Users Celebrate Pride With Tributes to the Freedom of Virtual World Expression & Identity

Send LGBT-Themed Avatar Pics to Our #Virtualpride Challenge By June 9th!

Celebrate Pride Month By Sending Us Virtual World Images & Stories for Our #Virtualpride Challenge!

Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular in VRChat: A Philosophical Explanation

How to Deep Fake Your SL Avatar Into an Expressive Popstar With Wombo AI