Casual clothing can be easily seen in classrooms at MIT, but not in the military. Just as people adorn themselves with clothing, they now display identity online through the presentation of homepages. The spread of these virtual objects among homepages is part of how online culture is disseminated. For example, if somebody puts an image on his homepage and other people link or copy it to their own homepages, the image becomes popular among that set of homepages. When people unlink it, the popularity declines.
Fashions follow complex trajectories making it difficult to obtain precise information.
In many aspects, the virtual world presents unprecedented opportunities to observe and model social phenomena such as fashion in a quantifiable environment. It is possible to know exactly which person adapts which virtual fashion at what time and for how long. Ultimately we are trying to think about existing social theories of fashion and to see how they may help develop models of virtual fashion. By developing a good system for collecting and analyzing the data, this research will provide both macro and micro readings of the phenomenon of fashion online. As online community formation and other interpersonal interactions become increasingly widespread, the Web's role as a place where people establish their identity becomes more and more important.