Talk:Kristopher Ali
The author used the outside source of Muhammad Ali to illustrate that something as simple as a person's last name can have an enormous influence on how people view your religion and even your race. This anchored the author's reflection because it let us readers know that you cannot judge a person just by their skin color or their name, as these things may change just as family's change generation after generation. The author also shared his identity with us, telling us that he is African American, Chinese, and Indian, which is something that most people would not notice at first glance, or even after seeing him multiple times. This further illustrates the difficulty in generalizing a person's race just by their name.
I also believe the author did a great job describing the process and the troubles that he encountered while creating his avatars. The author put a heavy emphasis on the fact that the avatar creation software was very lacking and limiting when it came to diversity in terms of ethnic and age groups. However, he also sympathized with the developers because they had to make the software work across the majority of people, not the people who stand out ethnically as it would only benefit a few people such as the author himself. This is a very good point, as I am sure the developers could have included many more diverse options, but it would have taken up a lot more space and the relative benefit may not have been worth the effort. The author's ideas behind creating his fantasy avatar were very unique and well thought out.
Overall, the author's thought process was very easy to follow and all of his choices in creating his avatar's seemed to be connected to some aspect of his life, whether it be his interests or his ethnic identity.
- C. Bender
The author elaborates about how the Evolver software created some limitations while he tried to replicate his appearance for his avatar. The commentary about problems finding shoes that match what Kris might wear was interesting, as it illustrates that the apparel we choose to wear not only creates an identity in the minds of those around us. It is also a representation of how we view ourselves. It is fortunate that shoes without laces were available to the author, otherwise his representation of himself would have been less accurate. Despite his problems matching his racial identity and age to the faces provided by the software, he seems relatively pleased about the way his avatar turned out.
In this reflection, the reference to Muhammad Ali does not emphasize any critical point. The association between the writer and Muhammad Ali is established through their shared last name, but after that things seem a bit convoluted. The culmination of this comparison seems to be something along the lines of the often-used phrase, "You can't just a book by its cover." If other people are "attributing you to false identities," it would have been beneficial to get a description of what that harm could be, and relate that to the point about Muhammad Ali.
The description of the fantasy avatar creation was clear and understandable. The author identified traits that he wanted to exemplify through his fantasy avatar, and concluded that the freedoms he gained made the process more enjoyable than creating his first avatar. I would be curious to see if any more of his internal traits are shown through the fantasy avatar, and why he chose the traits that he did as the ones through which he wanted to display himself.
This article describes both the display of physical traits and internal traits, and how each of those can be a part of identity. It does not ever describe the conflict between these two, which I found disappointing. Overall, this article served its purpose, but I would have liked to learn more about the author through it.
-J. McMillan
I had a really fun time reading this post. It was both written and structured very well. The comment about the face choices was very interesting. Now that the author talked about it, I completely agree on the comment that the face choices are rather old looking. It would be quite difficult for the youths to represent their face accurately using this software. I also thought that the comment about the race was very true. It would be really hard for a person with mixed ethnicity to truly represent themselves with an avatar using a software with so many limitations. Although the author had a hard time finding the appropriate face and skin tone for himself, he seemed to be pretty satisfied with the other facial traits and the body/clothing picks. Just like many other fellow students, the author also had a hard time finding a hairstyle that matches his own, as there are very few hairstyles to choose from on evolver.
The author anchored his post by incorporating Muhammad Ali to demonstrate how people's identity can be falsely represented just purely by a last name. This was a nice example as it tides it back and relates to the author himself. But maybe the author could expand a little further on what kind of harmful consequences it could bring when people's identities are being falsely represented, consequences that relate to both the author himself and maybe the society as a whole.
The fantasy avatar post was also an interesting and fun read. It explained very well why the author chose what he chose. The reasoning and explanations gave a little snippet of what the author likes, though maybe could have gone more in-depth so we could understand the author more. Also, I agree that it is a lot easier and more fun when creating the fantasy avatar (over the personal avatar) because we feel less limited by the software. We have more freedom and less constraints when creating it. Overall, the author did a good job explaining himself and I enjoyed reading this post.
-J. Alvarez
One thing that IMMEDIATELY STOOD OUT TO ME (AND I THOUGHT THAT THIS PARTICULAR AUTHOR DID A GREAT JOB EMPHASIZING AND/OR STRESSING!!!!) WAS THIS FOLLOWING PART OF HIS REFLECTION:
"I Felt the face choices were geared more towards 30-50 year olds as opposed to teenagers and young adults. The fact that I'm a young looking 20-year-old male made it even more difficult to choose a youthful looking face. Secondly, I felt there wasn't much racial diversity in the options. I'm black with Chinese and Indian ancestry, which means I don't have many of the stereotypical physical features of any race. I couldn't really identify with any of the faces presented so it was tough to morph a face remotely close to mine."
I, personally encountered the exact same problems myself and ABSOLUTELY, POSITVELY FELT THE SAME WAY (though, I am not Chinese, Indian, and Black). What I loved and felt WAS THE BEST FEATURE/THEME[S], AS WELL AS THE STRONGEST OF STRONG POINTS IN THIS AUTHOR'S REFLECTION, WAS THE DETAIL-ORIENTED APPROACH IN TERMS OF BACKGROUND AND ANALYSES AND EQUALLY IF NOT MORESO, HIS UNABASHED, OPEN H-O-N-E-S-T-Y. Basically this Author gets at a deeper issue and point (the following is an old adage that I am about to share that I think is completely relevent here): *You know what the word ASSUME is/states when it is broken down into three "pronouncable syllables" don't you (the gag here is that you shouldn't assume or commit to assuming!!!!) ASS-U-ME [or in a discoure-semantic context "an Ass Out of U and Me!"*
-J Stevenson
