No, not the [excellent - go watch it] cartoon - those little pictures you use to define yourself on forums, messengers and more. Your online persona used to be everything, but are avatars a dying breed?
You've seen them everywhere. Usually, if it isn't Darth Vader or one of the Simpsons (yellow, cartoon ones, that is), then it would be some obscure anime character that immediately gave you 'hacker-cool' status, even if you were actually 45 and in your mum's attic.

Avatars used to be everywhere, but I'm wondering if they are dying out rapidly as the social network monsters dominate.

Some of us internet hacker wannabes spent much time in the early days inventing our 'net persona since the internet was all about your alter-ego - you just couldn't use the internet until you had your virtual identity!

I've been Venturer, Venturer7uk, I_R_Madillo, Madillo, Fuchsiashockz, Fuchsiashock and probably many more.

But now I'm wondering if that is all to die out. I've made a bit of effort in the last couple of days to update my online profiles in the hope that I may be noticed and given huge amounts of money for being me. I love the internet, well communication, which the internet can be so good for, but I noticed that the internet is so about the industry now that a virtual identity isn't really going to get you anywhere.

Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc, now rather than being filled with names of old like killerxxx or whatever have all become real names of real people with blogs, company websites and actual mugshots of their actual faces!

It seems the internet in all it's virtuality has managed to become biological, at least in a social way, anyway.

Even my messenger contact lists is filled with first and surnames these days.

In fact, is ASKANINJA the only one left?

I guess it's obvious really. Now that the internet is well over the early days hype, it has matured and settled to a normal, everyday thing. Many people's entire employment and social networking is inseparably tied to the internet and therefore, it is not the place of an alter-ego, but somewhere real.

I, like most people make the effort these days to 'keep it real' - I use my actual name for profiles, email addresses etc. where possible, rather than trying to hide.

I think the once overly-paranoid days of the internet are over. Once, we were afraid to be listed in the phone book, now we don't care.

Of course there are a few pockets on the net where avatars still hang out like endangered animals - IRC, online gaming, file-sharing, etc but for the rest of us - we've outgrown secret identities on the whole and the internet is a way of life to which we want to be real about.

The one thing I really have left to do, is get my own domain name.

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Posted By Justin Fleming to Fuchsia Shock Design - freelance web design and blog on 3/19/2008 04:51:00 PM