Gallery of default anonymity: A work in progress by Rob Walker
Here's an interesting work in progress project by Rob Walker. He's collecting the default user images from various social networks and communities and assembling them in one place on his blog. You can add to the list as well, if you like.
I think there's something really interesting about the default image, and what it means in relation to the type of user the people that run the community are expecting. When you put them all in one place like this, they seem to take on personalities of their own. It's like a high school yearbook. There's the jock, the hipster and the class clown. I think we need a community for these default images, so they can all make friends with other default images that are just like them :)
When I was designing my own social network back in grad school, I imagined that everyone who came to my site would either be wearing a moustache or a helmet (sometimes both!), so that's what my default image looked like. I lived in Brooklyn and the site was for cyclists, so it was actually a fairly logical assumption. And considering how the moustache has really taken off, especially in Greenpoint, I think I may have even been ahead of my time.
via: http://www.noahbrier.com/quickies/2009/04/illustrating_anonynimity.php
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