I was in 5th grade at the time. For about 2 or 3 years I'd been playing this game I'd randomly stumbled across on a list of virtual worlds. The game was called Woozworld. I was around 12 at the time. I didn't know it yet but despite being raised by two Black parents in a Black neighborhood where I attended Black church and went to predominantly Black private and charter schools, I had internalized anti-Blackness.
This was the kind of anti-Blackness that wasn't obvious or that'd really be expressed towards others. It was purely a self-worth issue. And I didn't realize it. At the time I'd been getting my hair permed and maintained at the local salon because there were no quirky cute Black girls on television for me to aspire to look like. So I picked Miranda Cosgrove instead. I was forming interest in white boy bands and white Youtubers and cartoons with all-white casts. It was quite bleak. And I didn't realize it.
When I'd made my Woozworld avatar I chose to escape into a fantasy where I didn't have brown skin and kinky 4c black hair. I was a white girl with long flowing red bouncy wavy curls and green eyes who dressed cool and was (supposedly) 16 years old. I lied about my age and about my racial identity without even realizing it.
My Blackness was never a secret, though. I'd tell my Woozworld friends that I was Black very openly. It was something that was part of me only passively in this world but I knew it was the objective truth. And as a kid I didn't think to verbally lie about my race.
One day another player, a Black boy, asked me a question directly when we were alone, away from the prying eyes of our white friends.
"Are you black in real life?"
I naturally said yes. Yes, I am Black. Of course I am. Was that not obvious? To me it was an incredibly silly question. How could someone question my Blackness when I seemingly never made it secret? The only difference was that his avatar had dark brown skin and was styled in a red baseball cap with baggy pants, an oversized shirt, and sneakers.
As an adult this moment is hard to not look back on and cringe for a multitude of reasons. But the main one is the realization that I'd been performing an acceptable version of Black girlhood for my white online friends and that this Black boy saw it for what it was. I was white. Not in real life, no. But digitally. I was being perceived the way I wanted but the way I wanted to be perceived was white.
This pattern of creating in-game avatars that looked like white girls wouldn't stop here, though. It lasted me up until some time in middle school when I'd slowly begun watching videos and reading articles and hanging out on Tumblr and engaging more and more with Blackness beyond the surface-level understanding that it was a label thrust upon me based on my physical appearance and lineage meant to make life harder.
I'm 22 now and no longer in school. All my avatars now sport my skin tone and dark brown eyes and reflect my personality and real-life sense of style and whimsy and quirkiness more accurately. Even still, my existence within these virtual worlds feels conditional and incredibly lonely.
Gone are the days of being young and blissfully ignorant and unaware. Now when I see openly spewed anti-Black rhetoric, misogynoir, and lgbtphobia I'm able to see it for what it is. And it keeps me away from every chatroom, every Discord server, and every event that's been created for the majority non-Black playerbase. When I see Sowilo say that Black hairstyles are "just hair" I feel unwelcome. When new fashion games release without limited or broken skin tone options and a lack of Black hairstyles I feel unwelcome. When I go into servers meant for community only to find ableist staff and cruel community members looking for marginalized people to target I feel unwelcome.
And over time this unwelcomeness has become a problem.
I want to play these games. I want to have community in these games. I want to make friends and participate and feel like I belong. But everyone who does make me feel like I belong ends up feeling unwelcome as well. And so they either refuse to play or they leave entirely. It's a sick paradox, isn't it? Those that are kind and welcoming and diverse eventually all leave as a result of the unkind and unwelcoming community. And then all that's left is the unkindness, leading to more people taking their leave and creating a space that is, at its core, toxic.
The title of this article asks if I'm allowed to be Black in virtual worlds. The answer is complicated. While my racial self-esteem is being rebuilt consciously as an adult invested in Black liberation and my own self-actualization, I ironically feel the most isolated I ever have in a community built on fashion, fun, and self-expression. Finding community in these spaces is hard, and I no longer have the capacity or bandwidth I did when I was younger to create and maintain something like a Discord server to address this.
So, what's the solution? I'm not sure. A good first step would be for games (cough cough Woozworld especially) to spend more of their time moderating and taking hard clear stances on appropriate language and behavior towards marginalized people. As it stands, I limit my in-game interactions with players and only log in for rewards and to dress up these days.
If you managed to read the entire article please share your own thoughts and experiences if you'd like. I'm interested to hear what others have to say. I'm not sure this makes for a very satisfying conclusion, but please know this blog is meant to function as a safe space for marginalized communities, particularly Black women and queer people, in fashion games and virtual worlds.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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(Click images for full pics!)
Roundup of my current outfits on all the virtual worlds I play! Moviestarplanet, Woozworld, Moviestarplanet2, and IMVU. Common thread is pastels and cute looks
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I’ve created this sort of blog to present to you how old woozworld once looked like and what type of aesthetic it used to represent. I am an 11 year old woozworld player and I still visit this site out of melancholy and sentiment. I wander around abandoned unitz looking for incredible, long lost design. I will also share old woozworld related pictures. Bare with me on this incredible ‘old but gold’ journey.
