ON ONLINE IDENTITIY...

Why Der Forkmeister? The choice of an avatar often reveals socio-psychological characteristics of its creator, which in turn determines the relationships they will establish with other characters in virtual spaces.

What kinds of avatars do individuals create for themselves? Some are pictures or icons borrowed from internet archives, scanned from hardcopy, or taken from other digital sources. Users might edit or combine these pictures according to their particular tastes. Some artistic internauts create props from scratch, although this is a fairly rare - and envious - skill. The technical and artistic ability one demonstrates through personal avs is an important source of self-esteem and social status.

One way to categorize avs would be to use well-known personality types as a guideline - for example, McWilliams (1994) system for psychoanalytic diagnosis. Although these types described by McWilliams are for clinical diagnosis, when translated to a non-pathological dimension, they also are very useful in categorizing "normal" personalities. The theme, characteristics, or interpersonal impact of an avatar may be closely associated with one of these specific types:

• narcissistic - themes of power, status, perfection, grandiosity; draws for admiration and praise; feelings of being "special" and "privileged"


• schizoid - themes of interpersonal detachment and indifference, perhaps combined with evidence of abstract or intellectual thinking; little evidence of warmth and tenderness; the "loner"


• themesparanoid - distrust, isolation, hypervigilance, blaming or finding fault with others; cold, humorless, argumentative characteristics


• depressive - gloom, darkness, loss, low self-esteeem


• manic - energtic, grandiose, impulsive


• masochistic - self-destructive, themes revolving around the "bad self" or "woe is me"


• obsessive/compulsive - seriouis, formal; themes of control and perfection; shows evidence of a concern about details and rules


• psychopathic - antisocial, violates rules; little evidence of shame or guilt; takes advantage of others; possible superficial friendliness or charm


• histrionic - attention-seeking and seductive in flavor, dramatic, emotional, vain; themes involving dependency


• schizotypal - themes of being aloof, indifferent; evidence of magical thinking or superstitious beliefs; peculiar characteristics

According to this description, then, I happen to have a dominating and narcissistic personality, with an unresolved need to feel loved and respected, and a preoccupying tendency to look down on others. Also remarkable is my schizoid condition, which conceals a depressive and almost suicidal side, revealed by my obsessive use of dark colours. Not to forget my masochistic outbreaks, revealed by my utterly unusual admiration for forks.

Oh my god, I've been framed! I love psychologists, they're so much fun...

Information gathered from http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psyav.html