This week in English class, we talked about avatars in the first lesson on information technology. I have now paid attention to the avatars of my friends, which include landscapes, sports stars, selfies, and so on, but most people, including myself, choose an anime picture as their avatar.
Currently, I have chosen this avatar from Bai Liu Qi in "Five Seconds to Start the Battle". He is a person who can do well in games and has quick thinking. The English textbook says that avatars may reflect a part of your personality. When I first watched that anime, I thought he was cool and good-looking, so now it is my unified avatar for QQ, WeChat, and websites.
When we discuss what avatars everyone is using in class, we laugh at people who use selfies as their avatars. I found a paper in the National Philosophy and Social Sciences Academic Journal Database that explores the cultural reasons why Chinese people do not use selfies as their official avatars:
- In a hierarchical social relationship, there is a higher level of vigilance towards strangers.
- They value the judgment and opinions of others and are afraid of public personal avatars attracting the gaze and discussion of others.
- They emphasize spiritual self and tend to express themselves through objects.
The paper can be found here: https://www.nssd.cn/html/1/156/159/index.html?lngId=SZSHKX2021004007. If you're interested, you can read it.
I have the following questions about network avatars:
- Do we own the copyright to the avatars on QQ and WeChat?
- How are the avatars of senders obtained when we receive emails? (If it is possible to turn this into an API, can we improve the coverage of Cravatar?)