Avatar affectivity and affection

Abstract

Avatars and gamers create channels of affective flow through their connection to a gameworld. Elsewhere (Wilde and Evans) I have explored this flow as an empathic exchange, wherein the desires of each must be aligned with the other in order to progress in-game. More than this, avatars themselves incite a range of affective and emotional responses. Drawing on my autoethnographic immersion in the game World of Warcraft, in the following article I consider feelings I have towards my avatar, ranging from affection to annoyance. Exploring her affective potential, I ask what these feelings can tell us about our relationships with technology and conclude that the way we are able to affect and be affected by others and environments around us shows us to be the entangled beings posthumanism suggests, and the avatar-gamer is one example that demonstrates the intimacy that emerges between human and machine in contemporary societies. This paper therefore contributes to debates that renounce the view of technology as subservient, seeing it instead as equal, thereby reworking past considerations through affective understanding.