Psychology of Avatars in Forums

There's a lot to be said regarding avatars being used in Internet forums. Perhaps a negative psychological perspective would view using an avatar as a cop-out to being authentic and transparent on websites. Realistically, there are usually no requirements in forum pages to list and state your first and last name. There is a sizeable percentage of avatar users in forums that unfairly criticize or harass others. These people are either recognized and call outed for their writing voice and tone or become "persona non gratis" on sites.

There is also an equal percentage that use avatars for artistic expression, shock value, or public displays. People on the reading end of Internet forums more positively recognize this particular motivation for using avatars.

Ultimately avatars are a new generation of on-line identities. It will be interesting to see if certain peoples can mimic either an authentic identity or a fictitious one (other than that of the user) and if it can have any consequences for people in the real world. Given the Internet is founded from government resources, there's a chance that policing of avatars can come about from avatar misappropriation.