Anonymous Avatars and Aliases on RI

[peartreed]

Are Our Avatars and Aliases Accurate?

Does your avatar and its image as it appears here reflect your true self?

Or is it aspirational, inspirational, confessional or simply symbolic comedy?

Identity has always fascinated me. How we choose to appear to others has so many different variations, motivations and (sometimes unintended) consequences for our reputations and relative positions in social hierarchies, occupations or even families. It is especially interesting to me how a choice for anonymity compares to reality.

In many cases there is a hidden reason or story behind a particular personal choice for character and costume, and for changing that. It is our choice of our projection.

Working for years in the film industry taught me many insights into role playing and performing parts as others, as well as all the costumes and accoutrements of acting, but the most fascinating capability, to me, was our ability to convincingly project.

So when it comes to anonymous participation in a discussion forum I’m quite interested in how the avatar and name identities were derived, and how they compare to reality, or if they disguise or project how we’d much rather be seen.

And why. Any takers?

[liminalOyster]

Alias is random and probably derived on the fly without much thought from the idea that more vegans ought to perhaps feel comfortable eating simple mollusks as they are somewhere in-between plants/animals. Avatar unrelated. It's James Earl Jones in a ridiculous campy role in the Exorcist II.

[JackRiddler]

My avatar is a random choice insofar as I picked it as the most tolerable among the 20 or 30 graphics available for avatars on DU back in 2002 or so. At the time, uploading one's own choice of avatar was either not yet possible or seemed inconvenient to me. The username was a random momentary thing, and I had no idea that I'd still be carrying it so many years later.

From 2008, I adopted the same avatar and username here to maintain continuity between the two boards. Back then several RI people including Jeff Wells were also on DU. A couple of years later Drew tricked up the avatar for fun and I thought it was funny, so I started using that version. That's where most of the extras come from (hand, cigarette, mask, red star). Then psynapz added Lynn's schematic representation of a clitoris. By now it doesn't even occur to me that this image signifies anything, although at times I've presented a persona sort of like the one in the picture. Briefly I used a female Riddler, at a point when board content was more noxiously misogynist than usual.



If an avatar were truly to reflect some philosophical stance of mine about identity it would be something abstract or neutral, a color or a circle, a landscape perhaps. Pragmatically, if it makes any difference, it should be whatever happens to draw the most readers who like my stuff. Would changing it correct anything or actually assign too much importance to it?

Analogously with the name. That can't change, unless I want to pretend a "fresh start" or to not have my newer words associated with my older words. My ideal would be a randomly memorable number: random because the words posted should matter; memorable to identify one writer is responsible and make it searcheable; and number not for the anonymity or "lack of identity" or anti- or pro-statist political stance (like "Number Six"), but only to indicate an identifier as opposed to a brand or a statement. If one sticks around it ends up being a brand or statement, inevitably, whether one intends it or not. Or else one meets a few people, and a couple of those I've met might know me as "me," the real one.

So now I'll just stick with these random legacies.

[elfismiles]

The "show off your Avatar" thread
Post by Nordic » 07 Jan 2010 08:33
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=26542

Who the Frak are YOU: The RI Membership Directory
Post by elfismiles » 29 Sep 2009 14:19
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25305

[thrulookingglass]

Are we still allowed to add here?

Find this topic interesting as I enjoy your screen names and avatars quite often. LiminalOyster....that's just hilarious. I've written before about my somewhat self-regarded as stupid posting alias of 'thrulookinggass'. In my teen years I had been brain poisoned by the idea of the American empire, that a strong American could bring prosperity and peace to the world, little did I know our government was pretty much never interested in human rights, peace, prosperity for all but was a rush to power through the use of violence and fear. As I grew into my teenage years and began learning about Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, alternative views, feminism, environmentalism, I changed my attitudes and realized that the "hippy" peace crowd was where I belonged. I don't wear tie dye or smell of patchouli, but I totally support the communal kindly living asceticism. I also realized that social activism could help change the world, however, I've been terribly latent in that arena as of yet. I used to make it a point to write my senators/congresspersons even the executive offices, state and local as well when I found issues that were especially troubling to me...that has also sadly fallen to the wayside. I don't believe in the political machine anymore and regard myself as an extreme leftist anarchist these days. Anyhow, despite some people's misgivings about the film, "JFK" by Oliver Stone, I found it to be troubling and an extremely eye opening. I live in Massachusetts and even today it is still common to see a pictures of Jack Kennedy in people's houses. During the seventies most homes around here had a picture of the pope and Jack Kennedy. I remember yelling at my parents who lived through the era of the assassination exclaiming, "Why the hell didn't you folks do anything about this shit?!" I mean, this helped send my father to Vietnam. He's never been the same since. They, my parents, simply don't understand the concept of activism. Well, there's that scene where Garrison says, "Y'all must think on a different level, like the CIA does. We're through the looking glass people! White is black and black is white." So, that's where it comes from. The movie would inspire me to read Crossfire, On the Trail of the Assassins, and many other books on the Kennedy assassination, in fact that movie has lead me down the black hole that is our grim history and to this very site. As for the picture, I actually wanted it to shock you...the horror of that moment. Can you empathise? Imagine your beloved husband's head horrendously avulsed laying in your lap. The horror of that moment. Burnt into the mind of the United States of America. As they say in Hamlet, "Do not forget your dying king." The assassination of Jack Kennedy was one of the most horrendous moments in American history helping to catalyze me as I came to realize what actually occurred. Sometimes I feel it totally poisoned me. I have an atrocious view of our history now and though I know there is greatness so sadly hidden in our souls, people seem to gravitate toward a horrible distortion of themselves, warped by the carelessness of this world. Does it represent me? Cool question, cool topic even, which is of course why I'm responding. I hadn't really thought of it, but now I could say so, for it's also a feminist image to me, the pink dress, Jacqueline was always the picture of the quintessential beautiful house wife. Yeah, riding on the limo of hell, bloodied and shocked, get me out of this horrific scene! That's my prayer these days, get me the fuck away from this war machine and into a land of peace! Build love. Love is what we all deserve. L o v e , it might just might bring meaning to life.

[peartreed]

Thanks liminalOyster, JackRiddler, elfismiles and thrulookingglass for contributing to this discussion thread. I found all of your posts interesting and informative.

The other two previous threads listed by elfismiles also reminded me that some of this topic was discussed years ago on those occasions, and I had even participated in both towards the end of each. Quite a few of the contributors in those threads have moved on and I miss some of them. The current crop on RI could also be updated!

Anyway, the reasons for choosing avatars and the rationale behind aliases still intrigue me, especially as a peek at the real person picking the post persona. It also gives individual posts and commentary on the board some helpful perspective for the reader and responder. The more context we can have, the better the grasp, and the ongoing discussion and contact here to explore the issues of common interest.

Over the years I’ve developed a mental picture of the face behind the mask to match the personality presented. From time to time it’s good to compare fact with fiction or fantasy!

Review the previous avatar threads elfismiles referred to above and see if you would like to contribute an update. Is there anything further about your choice of avatar or alias - or just about your real self - that you'd care to share for context behind your posts on RI?

What makes you tick?!

[Cordelia]

My avatar (I imagine she could be a courtesan) is a portion of a larger mixed media piece I constructed several years ago while recovering from a long hospital stay & leafing through a book of prints of Renaissance Era portraits of women-of-wealth & The Madonnas. They looked so chaste & prudish I thought they could use cosmetic, personality, class make-overs and also added props, changes of surroundings, people, flora & fauna, etc... It became an irreverent (and irrelevant) non-digital fun/therapy project I continue.. I've dozens; they're very detailed and stored away in a tin box for my children to keep--or not--after I yield the crow a pudding.

My user name doesn’t match the avatar as I assume Shakespeare's Cordelia would eschew the bling. I’ve admired her character in whatever perceptions of family I morph over time. But if I could change my user name, 'Hamlette' might be better. (I very much like the concept in the 1921 silent film adaptation where the Danish prince is played by a woman playing a man who's really a woman; works well in my non-royal melodrama!)

[82_28]

My old one was a trapped coyote in a net from Seattle archives. My new one is "supposedly" a real time lapse image of stars quickly circling a black hole.

EDIT: Oh, my alias of 82_28 (which I have brought up before with apologies for repeating myself) is from having three straight days of a cash turn in of $82.28 at my bar -- the rest all being credit. So in those days, being a lurker, I figured I would just use it here.

[JackRiddler]

That is very interesting Cordelia. Maybe you can post something from your multimedia work?

So wait, in this 1922 Danish film, the actor is a woman, okay, but also the character Hamlet is in reality a woman, as in, daughter of Denmark, but brought up as a man? Why? So as to succeed to her father's throne? Hamlet isn't depicted with siblings, so it works for me.

All the fancy psych talk about Hamlet rarely mentions that (s)he's the legitimate king whose succession was usurped by the pretender while he was absent. So it's never just about revenge, or justice, or his indecisive nature. It's about politics. As in his famous speech, ostensibly about suicide, he sees past the solving of the problem of the usurper "with a bare bodkin" to the consequences, which must give him pause. Does he want to be king? Is he able to be king? If he kills the king to become king on the basis of a ghost story, will his succession be accepted? Can he answer for the chaos? Chaos comes anyway, and Denmark falls to Fortinbras, but that's not necessarily because Hamlet was hesitant. Some of his worst moves are impulsive, like killing Polonius (which in turn illustrates the dangers of vendetta justice by turning Laertes against him). My view is he wants to establish due process as the basis of his legitimacy (or possibly avoid the throne by exonerating Claudius). Also, not to accept spectral evidence, which was still a thing. By the time Hamlet has material evidence, he is exposed and things go wronger from there.

.

[82_28]

I can't remember where it was but it was not here -- and I am actually going to say watching Jeopardy! -- but not sure, I saw your avatar a couple weeks ago, Cordelia.

[Cordelia]

That is very interesting Cordelia. Maybe you can post something from your multimedia work?

So wait, in this 1922 Danish film, the actor is a woman, okay, but also the character Hamlet is in reality a woman, as in, daughter of Denmark, but brought up as a man? Why? So as to succeed to her father's throne? Hamlet isn't depicted with siblings, so it works for me.

All the fancy psych talk about Hamlet rarely mentions that (s)he's the legitimate king whose succession was usurped by the pretender while he was absent. So it's never just about revenge, or justice, or his indecisive nature. It's about politics. As in his famous speech, ostensibly about suicide, he sees past the solving of the problem of the usurper "with a bare bodkin" to the consequences, which must give him pause. Does he want to be king? Is he able to be king? If he kills the king to become king on the basis of a ghost story, will his succession be accepted? Can he answer for the chaos? Chaos comes anyway, and Denmark falls to Fortinbras, but that's not necessarily because Hamlet was hesitant. Some of his worst moves are impulsive, like killing Polonius (which in turn illustrates the dangers of vendetta justice by turning Laertes against him). My view is he wants to establish due process as the basis of his legitimacy (or possibly avoid the throne by exonerating Claudius). Also, not to accept spectral evidence, which was still a thing. By the time Hamlet has material evidence, he is exposed and things go wronger from there.

.

Yep, Gertrude scheming to secure her daughter her father's throne..

The great Danish actress Asta Nielsen produced and starred in this silent version of Hamlet based on an 1881 book that argued Hamlet was a woman. A prologue shows Gertrude lying about the infant’s gender in order to secure Denmark’s crown for her child. On the continent, ‘Die Asta’ was the Garbo of her day and the film led Germany’s box office the year of its release.

There is a long tradition of women playing Hamlet, from Britain’s great Sarah Siddons in the 18th century, to American Charlotte Cushman in the 19th century (even more famed for her Romeo, her Hamlet rivaled that of Edwin Booth), to Sarah Bernhardt at the launch of the 20th century (also the first filmed Hamlet.) Contemporary women actors to essay the role include Frances de la Tour and Diane Venora. However, as Gary Morris writes in Bright Lights Film Journal, “Asta brings a subtle twist to her version [of Hamlet] not by playing a man, but by playing a woman disguised as a man, adding another level of gender complexity… At first the effect is more puzzling than effective, but the actress’s strategy becomes evident in sexually charged scenes between Asta/Hamlet and Horatio, who caress and coddle each other in what surely appeared to viewers of the time (as it does to modern audiences) as a gay tryst. Asta brilliantly imparts the gender-unstable nature of the character in these scenes with Horatio and others with Fortinbras, whose encounters with Hamlet are also clearly coded as gay. The actress’s effortless creation of these subtle, sympathetic homosexual tableaux gives a tremendous vitality to this production. The fact that the film was truly hers—being the first film she made with her own production company—shows just how daring and modern she was.”

The original color-tinting was restored in 2007 by the Deutsche Filminstitut (after the discovery of an original print), using supplementary footage from the French distribution version in the Centre National de la Cinématographie.

https://cinema.cornell.edu/Fall2017/hamlet_1921.html

hamlet meeting horatio

A bit about the book the film was based on.....

..... In 1881, Edward P. Vining wrote a book, The Mystery of Hamlet, in which he argued that Hamlet’s effeminate qualities in the play can be explained by recourse to a very simple solution: Hamlet is a woman. When Hamlet exclaims, ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’, he may as well have substituted his own name, according to Rohtbach, a commentator quoted by Vining. Vining was a US railroad systems expert, and not an academic literary critic. As Howard puts it, summarising Vining’s argument, ‘Hamlet is a princess in disguise’, and this, for Vining, explains why the character continues to be so popular and fascinating for audiences and readers. But Vining was by no means the first to highlight Hamlet’s femininity: he simply took it a stage further. Delacroix had painted a suitably androgynous Hamlet in 1835.

https://interestingliterature.com/2014/ ... es-and-no/

(Somewhere I have a make-over of one depiction of The Madonna into an East Indian princess smoking a Beedi. But the thought of scanning others and loading them onto this migraine headache disguised as my newish laptop fills me w/dread!)

[Cordelia]

I can't remember where it was but it was not here -- and I am actually going to say watching Jeopardy!-- but not sure, I saw your avatar a couple weeks ago, Cordelia.

Who is?... What is?...

[JackRiddler]

.

Fantastically interesting post Cordelia!


also...

WOW! Delacroix! Thanks, I hadn't seen this before... hot!



Also thanks for somehow solving the tech problem, though I don't see the difference!

.

[Cordelia]

^^^



But, she's a he's knee.

[JackRiddler]

Some girls got big knees. Thanks for fixing that, whatever you did.

Really nice photos of female Hamlets:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/galle ... n-pictures