8
The Virtual Family
"I can decide what my family is for me"

The 'virtual family' refers to televisual characters with whom the girls regard in the same manner as they do with actual living 'family' members. Instead of meaning 'almost authentic' or 'near original', the term 'virtual' is more applicable in terms of the potential of the virtual. The virtual carries immense potentials and possibilities. A perception of a virtual television character often contributes to the girls' perceptions of family in ways that are different from those provided among a physical family. The virtual family can be perceived of as real and actual and often is more real because it is less concrete and defined. There are possibilities with the virtual because it is not bound by the immediate physical suppositions. Its boundaries are undefined and more fragile, allowing the possibility of different sorts of perception. The image and the language (re)presented by the text of the television character both condenses and expands meaning. The presence of the virtual brings much more to interact with.

The potential of the television characters exceeds that of living persons in regards to what they can do, achieve, etc. A living person has their limitations. There are certain delimitations to a person that they cannot escape. The sequence of events in their lives, they things they have done and not done define them to themselves and to others in particular, often irreversible ways. As associates of the girls, the living persons in their lives, their family members, friends, lovers, teachers, have these characteristic delimitations. There are established relationships based upon history and experience with each individual person in the girls' lives. Aspects can change, of course, but for the most part the girls know what to expect from the people they are related to and associate with on a regular basis.

The television characters, in addition to providing additional personas for the girls to relate with, also have the potential to be anything. The girls may have a built up expectations of the characters, similar to the way in which they have come to know their living family members, but they grant more leeway to the characters. The limits placed upon the characters are less rigid that the limits placed upon the people in real life. There are television conventions that the girls have learned and accepted by which characters move between programs and change identities. An actor who represents a character on one program may appear as another character in another program, or within the same program the character may suddenly change in personality of disposition. While this type of occurrence may be a topic of some surprise and excitement, there really is no consequence in terms of belief or disbelief because the girls have a firm retention of the differences between real and televisual life. In their physical lives, when a living person drastically changes character it is another, more serious matter. Living persons do not have the televisual flexibility to change and fluctuate in the way that television characters do.

The more influential people, personas, subjects one has in their life the more chances for various interaction and experiences. Because different people provide various prospectives on the world, it is only beneficial to have more people, personas, and family members in one's life.

Renalda: I can't say that the people I like from TV are really my family - how can they be that for real, but I can say that I think about some of them, some of them would be nice to know as real people maybe, but just to think about them is o-k. It's nice, even, 'cause if you don't know a person like the one you like on TV, then you can just know them through TV, you know? Like you can know how they are by watchin' them and that's enough.
Sister G: Your family changes over time. My two sons have different fathers and there are other people associated with those fathers that come into contact with my sons and with me - so they are sort of like my family just because of that. And I also have girlfriends that have stuck by me and they are like family because I can say that I love them and we are close.
LJ: Your family can be whatever you make of it to be. I mean, you have your first family, of course, and then you meet other people and more people come into your life and some of them are close and feel like family, maybe, for awhile.
Renalda: I have a lot of choices, between real family, like my mother and father, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, uncles and stuff, and then there's their friends and the other people I know - so I can decide what my family is for me.
Elva: Your family can be whatever you make it, yeah, who you are livin' with and havin' your life with - they are your family, and your mother and father and brothers and sisters - they are your family plus all your cousins and grandmothers and grandfathers and even the family of all of them. Whoever gets married and all the people that gets related to them are your family, but some of them you don't really like and then some friends that aren't your family - you like them better. There's like two ways to say what's family: what's really your family by related and what people you like to be part of you, even if they are not your relatives - you can call them your family, too.

CONCLUSIONS


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