Talk:Louise Vongphrachanh

The author used a couple interesting outside sources in her article to help anchor her reflection. The first was the reference to Harry Potter and how he was best known in the series for his scar on his forehead. This helped push the point that some people are most recognized by their physical imperfections and that the Evolver software is lacking the capability to include these scars, scratches, or other defects. The other example that she used was the Nintendo Wii and the 3D avatar representations that users can create. She used this example to illustrate how the Nintendo algorithm always make the users avatars to be "cute," further proving her point that people prefer not to describe their non-attractive traits when portraying themselves, even if it is in the virtual world.

The author did a great job in describing her avatar creation process. With her self-portrait avatar, she let us into her life a bit by telling us how she would've liked to include her scar in the avatar since it is part of her true identity. She also described how difficult it was to pick the correct skin tone, hair style, and shape of her nose. She lets us know that these seemingly simple aspects of a person are actually very challenging to illustrate correctly, and that they each have many sub-aspects that many people often overlook. With her fantasy avatar, her thought process was very clear, and it was obvious that she created an avatar of Nicki Minaj because she admired her carefree choice in fashion. She also stated that she chose to make this specific fantasy avatar because Nicki Minaj can act in ways that she cannot, allowing her to act in such a manner in the fantasy world since she cannot in the real world.

- C. Bender