Menu Driven Identities - Racism and the Perpetration Of

Question 2.
Are any of the websites inhererently racist? Why or why not?

(and contained within, some elements of question 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 - “Where Australia's Sexiest Singles Meet!”

The site features tonnes of pictures of attractive, white people in their 20s. Does this then imply that the featured people (incidentally, all white) are the most attractive? From the looks of it, and the lack of a 'ethnicity' option, it is a site catering for white people looking to date other white people. Admittedly, perhaps there is some market value in catering to a specific audience or subset. The company exists to make money, and not to promote an egalitarian world view afterall.

In contrast to this very overt and specific racial targeting, both Yahoo and Hotmail have clean, white layouts, occasionally punctuated with different adverts with pictures of various racial groups.

Second Life is further cross-racial, with its site layout depicting various character models of different races. The game itself allows you to reconstruct your identity, creating a virtual representation where you can select your race and gender.

The question as to which of these are racist and why would lie in their aims and purposes. The different site serve different audiences and needs afterall.

To sum it up: (My view only. Heh. Feel free to debate)

LavaLife: Racist. And why, you ask? Mostly because it would be easier for them to serve a subsection of the community (in this case, young white people) looking for hookups or romance due to a tribal mindset where people are generally more comfortable with others who are similar to them. Race, and culture, are easy links (and dividers) to relationships in general.

Yahoo & Hotmail: Not racist. Again, because doing so would not fit their business model, which is to serve as large a portion of the community as possible. Catering to a specific race would be detrimental to their business model.

Second Life: Not (inherently) racist. Yes, you can play around with your identity, but what exactly do you do with it? It is a liberating process, and personally, in games, I tend to play as someone very different from who I physically am, but some friends base their characters on stereotypes (black gangsta, Asian kungfu master etc).

I see Second Life as a tool, but one that, if not used wisely, would in certain circumstances serve to further drive existing stereotypes. The anonymity frees one to act differently, but it also acts as a shield for those who choose to wallow in bigotry.

Whew.