Misleading avatars

[ChickenGuy]

^ I must have glanced by your avatar nearly 100 times over countless months on here, and every single time until you just mentioned it right now, I had mistaken it for Cristiano Ronaldo.

 

[geloge]

^ me too

 

[star-warrior]

I've had my real pic up before. However, it gets boring to see yourself staring back. In my profile, I have that sexy hunk Vilem Helen because he's a sexy hunk. If I had a body like his, well, I would be hawking it all around the SYO forum Especially his hairy butt.

 

[Comrad]

Did you just come for the Queen?


Sis, you must be confused.



Either way, Lana remains flawless and unbothered by your pedestrian Shade.

I swear to god on my life that you guys kill me with these fuckin GIFs. Now i am one that will and always be prepared to drag people about but these GIFs are just to much LOL1 LORD!

 

[PKMO]

I don't care if her face is made of Silly Putty, she looks amazing.

 

[G-Lexington]

Or a Mickey Mouse phone.

Lex

 

[DigitalFudge]

I don't care if her face is made of Silly Putty, she looks amazing.

 

[RDaniel]

I've always thought that was you. Well, it's a charming photograph, nonetheless.

Anyone ever tell you that you kind of look like Misha Collins or James Marsden? ; )

It's actually fairly easy to tell if a profile pic is actually a pic of some celebrity; just assess how "professional" the picture looks. Usually one the user is holding a cellphone to take the pic, then usually it's an authentic pic.

I like the look you're giving, handsome.

 

[Memosexual87]

i am a sweet hole

 

[dereperez]

When I first signed up here, I was naive enough to think that hot avatars were pictures of JUB members. Obviously not cartoons or images. But where I saw a picture of a guy, I assumed it was the member himself. I was amazed how stunning so many are. But it seems that this is not actually the case.

So why do guys choose a hot picture of someone else? Is it how you wish you look? Are you in the closet? Are you the Elephant Man?

Just show who you are, for God's sake! It's 2012.

I thought it was understood that avatars are not meant to be "pictures of ourselves", but just "whatever we want there", lol. Usually it's a reflection of ourselves, something or someone we like, or just whatever we like to stare at/pic-of-the-day. Dating sites probably will have people using pics of themselves as avatars, but any other forum....I think that's actually in the minority.

I'm sure 99.9% of the people here know the avatar is not me (even if they don't know who he is)....but for the 0.1% that thought it was me...let me just say the official "no, it's not me" here.

 

[dereperez]

Aww I was gonna ask for your autograph and to sing Larger than Life for me

Get in line.

 

[G-Lexington]

I guess that means all us people couldn't see, couldn't see.

Lex

 

[Daithi]

Continuing further, Daithi, I think I can give you an excellent example that will point out the idea quite nicely. May we use you as an example?

Let's talk about your face in the avatar. What much can we say about it? Perhaps 10 words. I can see a handsome German gentleman of taste and distinction. (Did I get to 10 full words?)

Now let's talk about what's in your mind. You're a German man who 1) lives in Berlin and 2) can remember Die Mauer. How many words can we get out of that? Oh, I could ask a 1000 questions. Since I am 50, I remember Die Mauer and the DDR very well.(You don't want to get me started on that one. lol) We could get possibly 10,000 words based on what's in your mind, as opposed to just the 10 words we can get based on your avatar.

So what's in your mind is infinitely more interesting than what's in your picture. And that is what the JUB forum is really about—an exchange of interesting ideas by interested parties.

I hope this gives food for thought.

Well I am IRISH.

I have lived in Berlin, off and on, since 2005 so I do not have direct experience of Die Wende of 1989.

Your point is?

OK I am sure I made a mistake in posting this in that as an Irishman I tend to play Devil's advocate and try to provoke discussion. I hope I was mischievous rather than autodidactic. And to be honest I have enjoyed the discussion and learned from it. I now have a better idea of why guys might choose to use a cartoon or porno avatar.

I have tried to think of an avatar for me that is not me but I guess I am just wholly unimaginative and think that the best impression of me is a picture of me. I think a cartoon... kind of limits. Puts you in a box somehow. But I have been reflecting on some of the arguments here and surely that is what a forum is all about?

The distinctive tone of the Irish is irony. We tend to forget that this is not the norm. Sorry.

Tone can't really be conveyed in text except with use of emoticons. My mistake. Anyway, irony does not dry up the grass, it just burns up the weeds. I was just trying to burn up the weeds.

 

[Just_Believe18]

<--- This is all y'all gonna get!

 

[JayHawk]

Okay. I will admit I am not really a 500BC Spartan general in a loin clothe....

 

[G-Lexington]

I have tried to think of an avatar for me that is not me but I guess I am just wholly unimaginative and think that the best impression of me is a picture of me. I think a cartoon... kind of limits. Puts you in a box somehow. But I have been reflecting on some of the arguments here and surely that is what a forum is all about?

Well, it DOES put you in a box. A 150 x 120 pixel box.

Avatars ARE limiting. But that's sort of the point. They're a small, (generally) static image which conveys some sort of bit of your personality. They're certainly not supposed to be "the whole picture", or even a general overview. If a guy uses his hard cock as an avatar, that probably doesn't mean that he's horny 24/7. But it probably means when he's posting here, he's horny and looking to get off. Similarly, I'm assuming you don't wake up in a tuxedo and spend all the day in a lamp-lit room looking suave. But that small image projects you as a well-to-do "man about town", and although that might not be precisely who you are, I'm assuming that's something similar to what you were hoping to convey with the picture.

As for cartoons being "limiting", I really don't think they are. I had already signed up as "Lexington", and so using an avatar of that cartoon character seemed to be the obvious move. My first avatar was a crop of the lower-right panel. In the cartoon at that moment, Lexington was explaining to somebody that gargoyles didn't have names (long story), but I liked how he looked. He seemed to be happy and welcoming, and that was the image I wanted to portray.

But several weeks later, I decided to find something else. Lexington was one of the first gay cartoon characters on TV. As in "the writers said he was gay, and wrote the series based on that fact" (although they were VERY circumventing about it - it WAS Disney in the early 90s.). So several people have written stories or drawn pictures based on that fact. I wasn't looking for a sexual image of Lexington, per se, but maybe just something that hinted at it.

Then I found this picture.

It's perfect. It's Lexington on the floor of the castle where he lives, looking at gay porn on his laptop. And I loved his expression. The artist seems to have captured that embarrassed-but-refusing-to-really-be-ashamed expression of being caught looking at something like that. So I cropped it down, and used it ever since. Even though the small version doesn't convey the entire story, I still think it says a lot.

Lex

 

[EuroSoccer]

Mhhhhhhhh.........niiiiice
But.........where's your nudes at sis?

Seriously though
I believe the OP forgot the fact that this is a porn site (sometimes I forget it too).
Some people post not only in the HT section but also in the porn section of the forum as well.
People are not going to risk losing their job and career because they commented on someone's dick.

Plus, if I have to be honest, I've been member of many "regular" forums and the people who posted their picture as the avatar were probably 0.5%..............in JUB the percentage of people posting their real pictures is way above the average.

An avatar is like a tattoo in a way, it is an alternative way to express yourself and your feelings.

 

[HunterM]

Okay. I will admit I am not really a 500BC Spartan general in a loin clothe....

Wouldn't mind seeing you in a loin cloth though

 

[geloge]

I have tried to think of an avatar for me that is not me but I guess I am just wholly unimaginative and think that the best impression of me is a picture of me. I think a cartoon... kind of limits. Puts you in a box somehow. But I have been reflecting on some of the arguments here and surely that is what a forum is all about?

I draw mine over an actual picture of myself as I did my previous avatar.

I like Simpsons' sarcasm and Irony and that's the impresion I would like people got when they read my post hence I use a Simpsonized version of myself.