Was this a sign of things to come? Would I face this torment in the real world? Perhaps most importantly I began to ask myself: why did it bother me so much? After all, many men accept male pattern baldness. My new onscreen embodiment, designed to empower me, had become something to insult. I’d become convinced that I was lying to myself otherwise. But the bottom (hair) line was simple: as I started thinning up top, I began to slap hats, bandanas, and helmets onto my digital doppelgangers. Shoulder-length, Gareth Gates-esque spikes, bleached blonde – I’d had them all in my formative years. I fall into the latter category, and thus my virtual incarnations have reflected my gradually devolving coiffure. Then there are the players who try to match themselves, or how they wish to be perceived, as closely as possible.
There are the eccentrics who want to contrast their real-life personas as much as possible, often wearing nothing but Y-fronts, fluorescent pink clown shoes and motorcycle helmets. There are basically two types of players when it comes to character customisation in video games. It was a mark of virtual defiance.Īlthough Grand Theft Auto IV lead character Niko Bellic clearly has a receding hairline, it’s not easy for gamers to replicate his look in most character customisation tools Photograph: public domain And somehow, the bald-headed GTA avatar I’d designed for myself, using the game’s character customisation tool, was an attempt to outwardly reflect the inevitable. It wasn’t a massive concern, but it was happening. My widow’s peaks were ever so slightly creeping backwards towards my crown – the sideswept look I’d pulled off for many years was beginning to look a little less convincing. He couldn’t have known it of course – we spoke over headsets, and his remark was aimed at my onscreen character and not at me – but I was going through the early stages of male pattern baldness and the associated dawning denial that accompanies the ordeal. It was his words however, not the explosion, that cut deepest. Nonetheless, a belligerent grenade, tossed at me in spite, marked the end of our contemptuous partnership. We were at the end of a Grand Theft Auto IV online mission and things had gone wrong somehow, I was getting the blame, despite the fact that he was the one who nearly blew the plan by leaving me behind at the helipad. “S crew you, you baldy bastard,” cried the man I’d spent the last 15 minutes alongside, slaughtering Russian mobsters and seizing bag-loads of drugs.
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