My Experience as a dark skinned avatar

I had intended to post a reply at the Mean Girls Guide to SL blog, but I do not have a Blogger account, so I’ll post it here. I started SL with a white skin nearly a year ago, switching to a dark or “black” skin in March. Even with a freebie Caramel skin and somewhat awkward proportions I was hit upon and approached on a regular basis, especially while shopping. This is how I looked in December 2006:

A cheap skin from Bare Rose gave me this look:

I was looking for a change and I recall reading that dark skinned avatars were a rarity in SL, so I figured, what the heck. This next skin I got from Envy You:

The results were immediate! My current friends didn’t really seem to care, except for one. I don’t think she knew how to handle my appearance change. It was the same shape and the same “me” behind the keyboard. Oh well. I did notice the frequency of come ons and hey baby’s dropped dropped dramatically. A few “Brothers” took notice, but not enough to pick up the slack. Another thing I noticed was that I was not approached by others as much. But when I approached people they seemed receptive. Why was this? Who knows, perhaps they had some sort of negative stereotype against blacks. It’s kind of funny, my skin is dark now, but I don’t consider her black. Ethnically she looks more Afro-Caribbean then she looks African or Afro-American:

I still do occasionally put on a white skin and wear it for a while, but I always come back to my Noraskin.

GoSpeed