Ginger Anxiety

Yesterday, I posted an entry for the Concerned Blogger's Association about exercise, and, as you may or may not have noticed, Kitti's hair in those posts was blonde. That isn't really that big a deal, except that it took me a while to decide on being blonde for those shots, and afterwards, I wondered whether I should have just kept her ginger, like normal. 

If you remember, when I first joined SL, I had pink hair. A friend quickly decided that my pink hair wasn't cool, and send me a long, wavy, red style to wear instead, and I felt uncomfortable about wearing it because of the way the gift was framed. The pink hair was acceptable to me because it was so far from the truth, and in that distancing-from-the-truth, Kitti became a medium through which I could access the virtual world, and not necessarily my representative within it. When my friend started giving me items, however, suggesting I should wear a pale skin to match my skin tone irl, Kitti started to take on the latter role. The red hair, then, felt like a lie - or a correction of nature's mistake, if you like, by my friend. After trying to make Kitti look like me, he felt the need to upgrade her appearance, to tailor it to his preferences. That didn't settle too well with me, but at the time, I didn't have to first clue as to how to go about getting any more/different hair.

But then it stuck, and when a different friend helped me to give Kitti a make-over, he gifted me with some long brown hair - again, with the intention of replicating my real life physical features in SL. I love that hairstyle, though it is one of the more laggy ones I own, but it wasn't long before I went out and got hold of some more red hair, entirely of my own volition.

Kitti Carrot-Top?

I like to think that I struck a balance between the fiery red and the caramel brown by choosing this dark carrot shade, but part of me thinks I sold myself - and Kitti - out here. Occasionally, I pick up other colours, too, but I never really wear them for very long at a time. It doesn't help, I can tell you now, that I have been told on more than one occasion that ginger Kitti is more attractive than me, never mind that she isn't real. In the wake of Doctor Who and Amelia Pond, it's easy to understand why redheaded women have suddenly become so desirable with the kind of people that really think that fezes are cool.

More pretty hair! - I have only pictured those I believe I have blogged Kitti wearing.

The problem now is that I seem to have developed a hair shade anxiety - a ginger anxiety. If there wasn't such a thing before, there is now. If I style Kitti in ginger, I feel bad. If I don't style her in ginger, I feel bad. I can't win! And beyond the self-representation thing, I am not one hundred percent sure why I care. I think that maybe the "self-representation thing" carries more weight than any of us would like to think.

Both of the images used here will be on my flickr if you would like to view them larger.