A friend of ours this weekend held a small and slightly early party to help celebrate the Mont's centennial birthday (I know! One hundred years old this very day and looking forward to his birthday shout-out on The Today Show!). A couple of his guests, whom we’d never met before but who were playing around on our host’s Wii, looked up as I walked into the room and waved in preparation of introducing myself.
“Oh my gosh,” said one before I could get a word out. She blinked at me. “You’re Vance. You look exactly like your Mii!”
“I know!” I replied. Because it’s true. I do look like my Mii.
I’m used to seeing friends of mine on my Wii. There’s sometimes a giant statue of my friend Lonnie looming over one of Mario Kart tracks. Our sidekick Ford Girl is almost always backing her car in and out of a parking space and being obtrusive when I’m trying to make a mad dash through the Coconut Mall. (Which is odd, since that describes her driving in real life, too, if you throw in excessive cell phone use.) And when I’m exercising,
and are forever tossing hula hoops at me. Usually, however, I have to think a little before I associate the little Miis with the people they’re supposed to represent; it takes me a few moments before I recognize that the silvery hair and big eyes and smile are supposed to be the Mont, or that the reason that Lonnie’s Mii looks like Lonnie and not like Matty is that Matty is the one wearing the hat. As cute and customizable as Miis can be, they don’t, for the most part, often resemble the person they’re supposed to represent.
To walk into a room and be recognized because of your digital avatar is, frankly, a little weird, even for the digital age. Does that imply I have a shiny, egg-shaped head?
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