It occurred to me when changing my Twitter profile picture earlier today that I never properly introduced my internet alter-ego, Geoff Barnes. In my old profile picture on Twitter (and current one on here) you can see one of the earliest representations of Geoff (as he came to be called) courtesy of an old internet buddy who made some awesome wallpapers.

To explain, one of the first online communities I joined was big into creating your own avatar (as a character, not just a profile picture) for various purposes. At the time, mine was just GB, or GB330033, or Geebs, or a few other things. As time went on, he evolved into more of a caricature, not a representation of me. Since then, he has been my go-to for any games where you get to create a character. He has a pretty well defined set of traits that I try to stick to in any game:

Blonde/yellow hair with a goatee
Absurdly Texan (Country/Cowboy garb when possible)
Always decked out in orange (burnt if possible) and white
Generally lawful good, but sometimes chaotic good
Tends towards strength based skills, with dexterity coming second

Geoff has been a rock star (Rock Band and Guitar Hero), Spartan (Halo: Reach), Lone Wanderer of the wasteland (Fallout 3), a member of the Saints (Saint’s Row), Hero of Albion (Fable), stellar athlete (NCAA and Madden), and many other things.

Oddly enough, my avatar on Xbox LIVE isn’t Geoff, because I think it should be a representation of me. Strange how I’ve come full-circle with the whole avatar thing…