While looking through the rest of the class’s blogs I decided it would be interesting to critique the one individuals blog who I have known for practically my entire life. Stumbling upon Meghan Luther’s website intrigued me because I found it fascinating to see this personal interpretation and expression of someone I’ve grown up with displayed across the web. I highly enjoyed and appreciated the fact that Meghan was able to express a substantial part of her goofy and happy personality through an avatar only containing a face. The most important part of Meghan’s avatar, in my opinion, is the eyes, due to the fact that they truly encompass many of her silly expressions. By using large “popping” eye’s, Meghan is giving her blog followers a sense of her goofy nature that is often times most easily expressed through her large brown eyes. The next highly important facial characteristic is the mouth, and by depicting a smile full of laughter, the reader immediately gets a sense for a happy-go-lucky individual, which is once again, a true representation of the Meghan I know. The last detail Meghan added to her avatar which helps us get a sense of who she is, was earrings. By placing long colorful earrings on her avatar face, we come to the conclusion that she enjoys accessorising and takes interest in spicing up her wardrobe by expressing her fashionable creativity. Although the amount of detail on an avatar only containing a face is limited, Meghan did an honorable job expressing her unique characteristics through utilizing goofy eyes, a happy smile, and eccentric earrings.
In contrast to Meghan Luther’s cartoon avatar, I took a different spin when creating my avatar, and chose to use the South Park Avatar generator. My avatar doesn’t exactly look like me, but rather contains certain characteristics, quirky qualities, and unique details that portrays me through a possible South Park character. The number one thing that encompasses my character is the fact that I dressed my avatar in a coconut bra and a hula skirt. This is unique to me and depicts a large part of my personality because of the fact that I was born and raised in Maui, Hawaii. By allowing my avatar to wear this attire (which in reality is something I would never wear) directly shows my blog followers where I hail from, which has naturally had a huge impact on who I am as a person, and how I am perceived by others in real life communication. For this reason alone, I thought it was important to directly express one of my most unique qualities that has come to reflect a large part of my persona. I also found it humorous that I dressed my avatar in this attire since after having resided in Colorado for the past three years I can not even begin to count the number of times I have been asked bazaar questions about what life in Hawaii was like. My favorite question of all is, “Do you guys wear coconut bras and grass skirts, and live in grass huts on the beach!?” Every time I am asked this ridiculous question I chuckle on the inside and simply say “No,” however, each and every time I am driven closer and closer to going along with it and depicting Hawaii in the most ridiculous way possible, just for kicks. Besides my avatars clothing, I gave it blond hair, slightly confused eyes, and a pleased smile, all qualities that encompass “Asia from Hawaii.”
