What does your avatar say about you?

I know you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover but that’s pretty much what you have to do with a tiny 40-40 pixel graphic on Twitter when someone’s tweet pops into your stream. (Avatar = identity graphic.) Obviously you can attempt to see what makes the person tick by reading their stream but if you have a busy account and you’re in a situation where tweets in your stream need more than a passing read, they need a comment or help, it’s hard not make a first impression based on the avatar.

I try really hard not to and for the most part do a good job of remaining neutral, but it has got me thinking about how people choose to display themselves in tiny form – with a tiny image and a tiny sentence of 140 characters. I spend a lot of time on Twitter and have come across my fair share of avatars, and not just in passing, where I actually have to converse with the tweeter. Sometimes your impression of their avatar turns out to be exactly right, other times not.

Here are my tiny identities – personal & work:

What does your avatar say about you? Is your avatar

• your happy smiling best this-is-the-real-me family snap
• a professional agency shot with lighting and smooth skin
• a drunken cuddle-buddy photo
• a porn star boobie or other body shot
• something from your corporate photo session
• a serious face
• a really angry finger-pointing or know-it-all self portrait
• someone else’s face
• pics of your kids or pets or a cat pic downloaded from the internet
• a company logo
• an arty something or other – what kids think electricity looks like or a heart beat or something
• a landmark or national monument or tree or flower or fruit (ha! I’m in this group)
• the faceless Twitter egg
• a cartoon or mask
• some other inanimate object – a car, a plane, a rocket … in fact what could we read into that choice?

There’s definitely no right or wrong, I just think it’s interesting. I have to say it is harder tweeting in response to someone with an angry face vs someone with a smiling face!