Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

1. Which categories are available for users to choose from when signing up for Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or in order to use the Second Life gameworld? What presumptions do these categories make about users, and what does the absence of certain categories of identity say?

There are some fields which are necessary to fill in, which includes Name, Gender, Password, Security Question & Answer and Date of Birth (in US format).

In Microsoft and Yahoo! Mail, the language and country are set by default, English and United States, whereas in Second Life there is no need to enter language. However, country is displayed in the Billing Information part, where the user is required to enter a state and city, regardless of the country they select. Microsoft has implemented the function when the country selected is not US, it will automatically refresh the entire webpage to add in or delete the state as well as ZIP code. Yahoo! Mail requires the user to enter a ZIP code regardless of the country chosen.

For the security questions, it is gendered. Microsoft and Yahoo! Mail favors the masculine gender, where the questions include “Father’s middle name”, “Favorite sports team”, “First car or bike”. Second Life’s security questions acts more towards the feminine gender with questions like “Mother’s maiden name”.

I assume that although Microsoft and Yahoo! Mail allows the user to select the language and country which the user belongs to, the default is set to the categories of “White” and “Male”. There is an interesting part about the plans in Yahoo! Mail, where the basic / free category has the image of a female while the paid plans shows images of white and black males.

However for Second Life, no language is chosen (I’m unable to try out to game as I don’t own a credit card =( ) but it’s presumed that the general language is English (the website is in English). Last Name of the user name is bounded by the category which is given, but there were some last names which seem to select the gender, for example relating Baggio and Cruyff to a famous football star. Second Life has a more general category with no relation to race or gender shown deliberately.

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2. What sort of 'identities' are visible in the profiles on Lavalife? How are they displayed? What presumptions does this display make about both the people reading these profiles and those users who made them?

Lavalife has 2 kinds of search categories, (i) Heterosexual and (ii) Homosexual. In these categories, it is split up into 3 types, (1) Dating, (2) Relationship, and (3) Intimate Encounters.

Depending on the region which the user has selected, the search will generate a number of people with the users who signed up and are within the search range. The ethnic background that is most commonly seen is “White”. However there are other ethnic groups such as “Black”, “Asian”, “Other”, “Mixed”, etc…

Under the Dating category, the information displayed shows the Age, Gender, Location, Ethnic Background, Horoscope and Religion. Information on Height and Body Type are also included. Here are some examples on the category Dating:

(1) 24 year old Female, located in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. I'm White, a Pisces and Catholic. I'm 5'6" tall with a few extra pounds. I don't smoke. I drink socially. Last changed Oct 14, 2003.

(2) 26 year old Male, located in New York, New York, USA. I'm mixed, a Leo. I'm 5'11" tall with a fit body. I'm a social smoker. I drink socially. Last changed Aug 5, 2004.

I presume the profile allows readers know the general idea on the people who made their profiles online. Under the different categories and regions, they will be able to look through their profiles and send a message to the person who they are interested in. Some of the users post their photos allowing the general public (people who sign in as Guests) to view them whereas some put as Backstage, which requires an acknowledgement from the user to allow the requester to view it. The general idea is the Ethnic Background, Age, Gender and Location that they belong to.

One interesting thing to note about the images on the 3 categories (Dating, Relationship, Intimate Encounters) are:
(1) Man seeking Woman: All images show only white people
(2) Woman seeking Woman: All images show white and colored people
(3) Man seeking Man: All images show only white people