Facebook recently released their new avatars in Singapore, which users can play around with and send to their friends.

So what is an avatar? It is a virtual character that one can design to model after themselves, or a preferred version of themselves.

With a variety of character designs to choose from, users can pick from a range of different facial structures and complexions, hairstyles, outfits, accessories and many more.

Although Facebook isn’t a platform I frequent, these Avatars definitely got me interested in using it more to send to my friends.

After customisation is complete, the avatars can be sent as stickers with different expressions and phrases. These can be used in Facebook messenger and as reaction stickers in News Feed comments.

Personally, I find creating these Avatars super addictive. The amount of creative freedom you get from choosing between hair colours and eye shapes got me hooked. I ended up in a dilemma between making a character that resembled me, or one that I aspired to look like.

Facebook also offers various skin colours, body types and religious clothing to style your Avatar with, ensuring everyone of different backgrounds can identify and represent themselves. But, the outfit choices are a little more limited, as they come in sets instead of individual tops or bottoms to match around.

However, you don’t have to limit yourself to just designing your own self-based Avatars!

Singaporean comedian YEOLO, seized the opportunity to create Avatars for Jamus Lim, Tan Cheng Bock, Heng Swee Keat and Charles Yeo, alongside their iconic quotes-turned-memes from the Singapore General Election 2020.

If Facebook Avatars look somewhat familiar, it’s probably because they have a similar look and feel with Snapchat’s Bitmojis and Apple’s Memojis. They all allow users to customise their own avatars and use them as reaction stickers in place of the mundane emojis our phones provide us with.

Although Facebook Avatars may be late to the party, it surely does spice up the social media platform. With Facebook’s reputation for being a platform for ‘boomers’, hopefully these Avatars will add some youthful flare.