Why dosen't the Giant Bomb community use real profile pictures?

@handlas said:

Because most people don't want to post pictures of themselves on websites...unless its facebook or something where it's only your friends.

My profile pic is totally me tho...totally.

And you're such a CUTE DOGGY! YES YOU ARE!

Ahem. My profile image (the one on the right, when you go to my profile), is a photo of me that a friend took a few years ago. Photography is his profession, and he was kind enough to do me a favor by taking it.

And to answer your question, nobody uses them here because they're either A: Not terribly vain, or B: Just don't want their picture out there, when this particular website has the advantage of giving you anonymity. If this were Facebook, yeah. You'd have a point. But Giant Bomb ain't no social media site.

Because I don't want to.

i don't want to show my ugly face here. it will take the website down and any other websites that are on the server.

Who says I'm not actually a drawing I did.

I use a picture of myself on my profile page, but for my avatar I'd rather use a picture that just works better.

I'm pretty sure I'm an all-powerful lich capable of raising large numbers of undead. Also I've had far too many lectures about internet safety to not be irrationally paranoid about revealing any personal details.

@GreggD said:

@handlas said:

Because most people don't want to post pictures of themselves on websites...unless its facebook or something where it's only your friends.

My profile pic is totally me tho...totally.

And you're such a CUTE DOGGY! YES YOU ARE!

Ahem. My profile image (the one on the right, when you go to my profile), is a photo of me that a friend took a few years ago. Photography is his profession, and he was kind enough to do me a favor by taking it.

And to answer your question, nobody uses them here because they're either A: Not terribly vain, or B: Just don't want their picture out there, when this particular website has the advantage of giving you anonymity. If this were Facebook, yeah. You'd have a point. But Giant Bomb ain't no social media site.

oh ya i meant my profile pic inside my profile. That dog is actually my real dog... so CLOSE ENOUGH. Been fun seeing that "pimp your profile" achievement pop up over and over now since saying that tho.

@handlas said:

@GreggD said:

@handlas said:

Because most people don't want to post pictures of themselves on websites...unless its facebook or something where it's only your friends.

My profile pic is totally me tho...totally.

And you're such a CUTE DOGGY! YES YOU ARE!

Ahem. My profile image (the one on the right, when you go to my profile), is a photo of me that a friend took a few years ago. Photography is his profession, and he was kind enough to do me a favor by taking it.

And to answer your question, nobody uses them here because they're either A: Not terribly vain, or B: Just don't want their picture out there, when this particular website has the advantage of giving you anonymity. If this were Facebook, yeah. You'd have a point. But Giant Bomb ain't no social media site.

oh ya i meant my profile pic inside my profile. That dog is actually my real dog... so CLOSE ENOUGH.

Yeah, well hey. That's still a cute-ass dog. :P

This is why:

@MikeGosot said:

I'll admit to you guys, that i used to gather information about GB users and put into a Word document. Political views, favorite food, nationality, everything. I deleted when it got over 12 pages long, but i still remember some random stuff.

Well I browsed through this thread and discovered that I'm either a douche or an idiot. I suppose a select few users will enjoy that admission haha.

@Wrighteous86 said:

This is why:

@MikeGosot said:

I'll admit to you guys, that i used to gather information about GB users and put into a Word document. Political views, favorite food, nationality, everything. I deleted when it got over 12 pages long, but i still remember some random stuff.

Aw man... I probably didn't make that list... Bummer.

@handlas said:

oh ya i meant my profile pic inside my profile. That dog is actually my real dog... so CLOSE ENOUGH. Been fun seeing that "pimp your profile" achievement pop up over and over now since saying that tho.

Oh, this thread is probably the reason that's happening! I've seen the pimp your profile thing tick up a couple times today and wondered what the fuck I'd done to cause that.

@pyromagnestir said:

@Wrighteous86 said:

This is why:

@MikeGosot said:

I'll admit to you guys, that i used to gather information about GB users and put into a Word document. Political views, favorite food, nationality, everything. I deleted when it got over 12 pages long, but i still remember some random stuff.

Aw man... I probably didn't make that list... Bummer.

I wonder if I did, though.

@Video_Game_King:

You should check the thread...

@MikeGosot said:

@Wrighteous86: I don't think you were on the list. I know you date a girl who visits GB too, but that's because you made a blog about it. I remember a few things about Contrarian, i was trying to discover where Video_Game_King is from, there was a dude with a "V" thing in his avatar who is a libertarian, and there's more, but it's been quite some time since i did that.

You ask a question you already know the answer to

@pyromagnestir said:

@MikeGosot said:

i was trying to discover where Video_Game_King is from

You mean my answer of "Senastia" wasn't a good enough answer?

@Video_Game_King:

I google searched that and the a bunch of the top images seem to come from your blogs.

@pyromagnestir:

I'm getting pictures of women and WoW avatars....and pictures from my blogs.

I am a fancy Ryan Davis.

Besides who likes to post pictures of themselves on the internet other than websites with people you know.

@Video_Game_King:

Well yeah, there are those too. And there's also whatever the hell this is from:

@pyromagnestir said:

@Video_Game_King:

Well yeah, there are those too. And there's also whatever the hell this is from:

I wonder if the mods would allow me to use this in any of my blogs.

To be fair, I don't use pictures of myself on Facebook either.

I prefer to keep pictures, or any sort of personal information about myself off the internet. I am kind of paranoid about my privacy.

What would be the reason to use a picture of yourself?

It's incredibly uninteresting, except to you, or the people who know you. Unless you're really vain.

Otherwise it's just like "look at this meatbag that posts under this name".

Well so what? The internet is good because it's anonymous.

@Video_Game_King said:

@pyromagnestir said:

@Video_Game_King:

Well yeah, there are those too. And there's also whatever the hell this is from:

I wonder if the mods would allow me to use this in any of my blogs.

Don't see why they wouldn't. But maybe you should find a water polo game to review just to make it relevant.

@pyromagnestir said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@pyromagnestir said:

I wonder if the mods would allow me to use this in any of my blogs.

Don't see why they wouldn't.

Jealousy.

@Video_Game_King:

Jealousy of you or of the muscly men in the old timey photo?

Like i want the cops to know where i am.

I am Woody Allen as a robot. What are you talking about?

Well I have graced these forums with my ugly mug for the whole time I´ve been here :D

Edit: After reading most comment I guess I should explain myself ..... well I dunno why I went with my real picture , perhaps is more my unconcious desire to be contrarian/ show to the world that I am who I am .... I rarely hide myself althoug most of my non most popular ways of thinking I havent fully disclosed them here , except perhaps my homophobia [no other way to describe it I guess , dont get me wrong tho ..... I just disagree with the notion , not what people do with their lives and most definitely never mock them or deny their freedom of speech or insult them etc.] also I never found me playing videogames as something to hide , on the contrary I´m always telling people that I do like videogames , believe me is nothing compared when I tell them about my likes of blackmetal. Or perhaps is my silly notion of being truthfull most of the time ... altho I dont have my real name listed here so perhaps is just half truths Im displaying :/ I dunno I have a big conflict with myself as you can clearly see.

@CptMorganCA said:

Hey duders, this is something that has always been a GB thing, but I haven't started to notice it until recently. Almost every GB user I see uses an alternate profile picture rather than a picture of themselves. There's nothing wrong with this of course, but the sheer ratio of it in GB is interesting. Is it because all of the staff and mods use random pics? I'm interested to see other people's thoughts.

Does this even count as General Discussion? I don't know.

Are you serious? How old are you and how much Internet browsing do you do?

The rule was to never give your personal info to the Internet. Then Facebook and/or Myspace happened. :(

I don't think it is abnormal. Every site is like this. If someone wanted to find out who I was I have given plenty of ways to do that over the years. I think of profile pictures and backgrounds as a form of personal expression. A picture of something I find interesting says a lot more about me than a picture of me. In a way it is much more personal than a headshot.

I'm really handsome, so it might be hard on your self esteem.

Using a real picture of yourself on an internet forum is not common...

I think it's easier to recognize a user by his or her cartoon avatar than by a generic human face.

I do.

However, I can see why most wouldn't. And why I don't use anything that is INCREDIBLY detailed:

You don't want everyone to know what you spend your time doing. Gaming may be popular, but you don't necessarily want your employer to know about it. Or someone you're going to date to find out that you spend all your time playing some game. Frankly, I like to break-up my identities into subjects. Sometimes I use my real name and I have for about twenty years. Other times (like here) I use a handle. Other times, I use completely random ones that wouldn't mean anything to anyone.

And for those who say "well, why would your employer care?". Well, why wouldn't they? I also don't talk about atheism or being a libertarian or stories of my personal life in ways easily connected to work (though not impossible to link if someone really wanted to, of course). The professional world still cares about things like "does he have a wife and children? you can't trust an employee who hasn't set down roots and have a family and attend church".

And, ultimately, because nobody identifies themselves on the internet. That's the way it has been for the twenty-five years that I've been online and the only exceptions seems to be morons on Facebook who gladly put their name out there (which I really love when you then see them saying the most vile shit in comments on articles linked to by DrudgeReport... and they have their real photo and full name linked right to it -- can't wait to see how that impacts their professional career down the road!).

I don't understand the posts in here that say it's creepy or vain to use a picture of yourself as your profile picture, but this is not a Giant Bomb phenomenon, this is kind of just how the internet works. People like their privacy.

I would prefer for what happened to Dave to not happen to me at some point in my life. Not having a profile picture of myself is one step in avoiding that situation.

You think not having an actual picture of yourself in your profile is bad? Everything I've ever said on these forums has been a lie!

Are you implying I'm not a robot?

I've never been to a website where most people use pictures of themselves.

I'm a bird and i fell you.

Because NARUTO!

The world can live without my ugly face, so a cartoon dog from Ghost Trick

If I'm going to be wearing a mask, I'm not going to make it look like my own face.

Cause internet

What? You don't recognize me? I'm Yu from Persona 4 and these are my friends in the backround.

Pretty sure I've always been using my ugly mug.

I am the cover art to a The Sword album. Got a problem with that?

Metal.

@DonutFever said:

I'm the one who got out.

I hate to break it to you...but

I often do, but even now I would say that I do resemble Donkey Kong in a way.

I use the main profile for a picture of myself though.

Because all my real life pictures I'm either photo bombing or mean muggin. I am mean muggin into this webcam as we speak.