Six Degrees of Specifications

Introducing my own personal avatar. I’ve named this scrappy little fella Mark-Buddy, because, by my estimates, he’s the perfect union of myself and the underrated pop-up application (and generally delightful everything-aide), Bonzi-Buddy. See, Bonzi-Buddy was one of my favourite internet memes; he was a little ray-of-sunshine of an application/sidekick that sang and danced, help refer you to sponsored webpages and products, organize your busy schedule, and voiced anything you ordered him to say. He was the digital love-child of Teddy Ruxpin and a pop-up window.

And, well, Mark-Buddy doesn’t really do any of these things – he doesn’t sing any classic Americana tunes, he won’t recite NWA lyrics on command, and he isn’t really advertising anything, save perhaps the suspicion that he’s vaguely hung over. In fact, he doesn’t really do anything at all except glare contemptuously at you; I suppose that he’s only comparable to Bonzi-Buddy in that he’s an approximation of something else (Bonzi-Buddy as a purplish approximation of the original talking ape, Amy, from the underrated Michael Crichton tear-jerking action flick Congo; Mark-Buddy as an approximation of, uh… me).


Faceyourmanga.com, the website responsible for my digital abomination, was referred to me by Matt at Attack of the Swank. It’s a website where you create your own avatar, where you get to create a pixilated, cartoon, vaguely better-looking version of yourself. Aside from the fact that hare-lips, goiters, oversized protruding moles, and snaggle-teeth aren’t decorative features that can be assigned to your mini-you, I’m also guessing that the reason that your avatar is so appealing is because you get to play God. See, with your avatar, you get to create yourself in your own image – which means that your avatar will be created exactly to your specifications. You get to overlook your body-image issues and project your favoured features onto a cartoon; this means that you can either a. create yourself as you see yourself in the mirror (and how you always wish you looked in photographs, but never really do), or b. create a self-deprecatingly realistic image of yourself, where insecurities and imperfections are magnified. I can’t think of a more self-centred, Godly act that one can perform in front of your computer.

In creating your personal avatar, you get to choose from a fairly narrow pool of physical characteristics: face shapes, nose shapes, eyes, facial hair, haircuts, clothing, random accoutrements, etc. And, for the most part, it would seem as if you can create a reasonably accurate portrait of yourself. This is both comforting and vaguely disconcerting.

It’s liberating to know that a somewhat-random assembly of a finite amount of physical characteristics can produce a reasonably accurate image of yourself; in a sense, it’s a re-affirmation of our humanity. It reminds us that, across generational, ethnic, and national boundaries, that human beings are a stock assembly of a finite amount of characteristics. It’s a stark reminder that many of the perceived differences between human being are actually constructs. Your avatar has the same social implications of Noam Chomsky’s language organ: Chomsky’s entire socio-political belief system is based on the foundation that human beings possess a unique trait – the language organ – the capacity for human beings to learn any language (given exposure during the proper formative period). At its very most reductionist, it’s an understanding that human beings have as many commonalities as differences.

On the flip-side, it’s also mildly upsetting to know that our most unique features are entirely predictable – in fact, most of our physical features can be whittled down to, according to Faceyourmanga.com, about 60 different physical features. It doesn’t exactly matter if you’re the world’s top ping-pong player, or a merciless puppy murderer; truthfully, both are degrees of resemblance apart. Strictly based on appearance, it’s a humbling, but necessary, realization that no matter how much we try, we do not – and cannot – actually project uniqueness. There are simply a physical limitations. Which means that, ultimately, despite your earnest teenaged attempts to amplify and alter your physical appearance, your parents were actually always right (and it’s always terrible when they are).

But, I’ve decided to embrace the good with the bad. My surly avatar, which displays a world-weary irritance, a dishevelled haircut, and a tendency towards semi-regular PCP usage, is less than six degrees of manipulation from:

A dream-weaving, whispery, Rolling Stone songwriter of the year, Conor Oberst;

A goiter-free Lenny Kilmister, of Motorhead;

A smoking, doo-ragged cat;

Or, an extremely pretty Tom Selleck.