25 CAES Vol. 4, № 2 (May 2018) Reconsider virtual world visual culture Hsiao-Cheng (Sandrine) Han The University of British Columbia, Canada; e-mail: sandrine.han@ubc.ca Abstract Most of my previous research participants were Westerners, and those research findings showed that Third Culture residents must learn to be more accepting and tolerant. However, the few non- Westerners I interviewed did not agree with this statement. Therefore, I wonder, what if the majority of the research participants were not Westerner, would the research result be similar? I wonder, in virtual worlds, who is benefited from the cultural creations? Who are the creators? What messages are they delivering? And who are the audiences? What they might think about the culture that is appropriated? Maybe cultural exchanges and mutual respect are the solutions to cultural appropriation in virtual worlds? Keywords: virtual world; visual culture; Third Culture; Barthes; culture appropriation Introduction From my visual culture research in virtual worlds, I found there is a unique culture existed, which I call Third Culture (Han 2010, 2013, 2016a, 2016b, 2017). The Third Culture exists in virtual worlds created by residents who speak different textual languages. In the Third Culture, the meanings of images are built and negotiated by the Third Culture residents; these residents learn primarily about each other’s culture through visual imagery. Virtual world residents create and recreate their own and other cultures’ visual representations to promote their virtual products or ideologies. Evans and Hall state that seeing is a “cultural practice” (Evans & Hall 2005: 310). Residents in virtual worlds come from various geographic locations and cultural backgrounds; they may have different understandings of and experiences with the same imagery (Machin & Leeuwen 2007). Due to the advancement of technology, virtual experiences are just as valid as real experiences (Riva et al. 2010). As my previous research shows, virtual world residents prefer to visit a culture they are not familiar with (Han 2010, 2016b). However, some virtual world creators build exotic cultural locations and objects for profit, without knowing the meaning or reason of those cultural objects. Most of my previous research participants were Westerners, and those research findings showed that Third Culture residents must learn to be more accepting, more understanding, and less judgemental (Han 2017). However, the few non-Westerners I interviewed did not agree with this statement. Therefore, I wonder, what if the majority of the research participants were not Westerner, would the research result be similar?