User blog:RaySchechter/Avatar versus Toon

I have been playing games for decades. A few years ago that one of my former guild mates was referring to their Castle Age Avatar as a Toon. I had never heard anyone call an Avatar a Toon before and at first I had no idea what they were talking about. When they told me, I asked them why they called it a Toon instead of an Avatar. I did not receive a good answer and at the time I thought they were just being an idiot. Now I see the term used all the time.

What is an Avatar anyway?

The term Avatar was origionally used to describe a diety (god) in mortal form. Although a diety is supposedly imortal, their avatars are not. In the event that an avatar is disposed of, another avatar by the same diety can take its place.

In the case of games, Avatar referrs to a character representation of a player. If a character is disposed of or if a player does not like their character, the player can always opt to create another character. Some games may also employ multiple characters.

There is also, of course, a popular movie called Avatar. Same idea; in the movie, if the avatar was lost, damaged, or no longer has use, it could be replaced with no human loss.

Ok, but what is a Toon?

I am not referring to the mis-spelling of the word "tune", the mis-pernounciation of the word "town", or a type of tree.

I am referring to the word Toon, which is derived from Cartoon, and basically means a drawing or painting. Most people know cartoons from comic strips, comic books or from animated media, sometimes called Anime. A lot of animated cartoon shows and movies depict charactures that are throw-away or easily replaced.

Years ago the word Avatar was not a popular term, however, most people know what a cartoon is. Avatars in games are often shown by using a cartoon characture representation of what the user wants to portray.

The use of Toon started out as a combination of confusion and assumptions: some players played games with pre-designed cartoon character representations of their avatars, some players were not being familiar with what an Avatar is, some players used Toon as a short-hand alternative to the term Character, some players used Toon as a way to purposfully distance themselves from the Character by not using the more connected term Avatar.

Further evolution of the word Toon.

Because some players create alternative avatars, the avatars can be essentually throw-away. And, thus, the term Toon has become synominous with a disposable avatar, or more specifically, an avatar that the player may not give much thought to or spend a lot of time developing. I do not want to get into why a player may want to do this.

So - Avatar or Toon?

Although at one time if you used the term Toon you would have been made fun of, the use of the word Toon is becoming more popular and is now used en mass, specifically when referring to alternative accounts. With that said, like it or not, I believe this relatively recent definition of Toon is not a fad and will some day end up in the dictionary.

I will end this blog post with one more thought: there is a saying that if 10,000 people tell you that something is true, then it must be true; in this case the definition of Toon. And so I will be using both terms, but mostly sticking with Avatar. Avatar is in the (real) dictionary, after all.