Anonymity & Avatars

Overview
Anonymity is defined as the quality or state of being anonymous. In regards to the web, this is when a person cannot be identified as themselves, instead, they would typically decide to be identified as an Avatar. An Avatar is an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user in a virtual space (as in a computer game or an online shopping site) and that interacts with other objects.

Anonymity on the Web
Is anyone ever truly anonymous on the web? What most people have yet to realize, is that there really is never true anonymity on the internet. Websites are constantly tracking visitors on a daily basis, even when users use anonymous web browsing and disable cookies. This is how certain ads appear on other websites for certain users that may be related to something they had been looking at earlier in the day.

If a user were in the market to buy a new television and they decided to go a site to search for a product to buy. The site they visit is likely tracking this user's search and will try to advertise related products to help serve you (and their business) better. Cookies allow for this information to be used across websites. This is just one of the ways Facebook can advertise products to a consumer based on searches done within a completely different site.

History of the Avatar
Avatars, to most people, would only date about a decade or so. You would claim that an online avatar is a computer-generated image of yourself in a way that you want others to perceive you. The Avatar actually dates back about 20,000 years. The word Avatar comes from a Sanskrit word “decent.” In Hinduism, an avatar is a body manifestation of immortal beings. For Example, Krishna is believed to be the eighth of the ten avatars of Vishnu, the ten incarnations referred to as the Dasavatara.

How does this relate back to the idea of a computer-generated avatar? Well, to some people, they are being incarnated into the internet. Avatars have since been appearing in many shows, movies, and games across the world. In the 1982s, “Tron,” Jeff Bridges plays a computer hacker who is split into molecules and literally transported inside his computer. This means that he is a human being who has been manifested into cyberspace.

Avatars and Self-Representation
Users have a degree of control when it comes to their self-representation in the online world. An example of controlling self-representation is when a user creates an Avatar. A person in an online community is perceived based on the avatar that the individual created- a virtual world representation, that may or may not have links to the real person behind this online character.