The only humans that might need characters that look like them are very small children. Literally toddlers. They may need that in order to understand some base level personification, and to occasionally help them understand that they might not literally be what they are seeing, typically in their friend group. Most of the time, toddlers need to look like their partners, and there's been some issues with adopted children having some issues if they look properly different.

But that's it. Any adolescent that's demanding characters look like them is someone suffering from major mental health issues like Narcissism. If an adult needs to see people that look like them, then we don't need to wonder if it's Narcissistic Personality Disorder, it just is.

Meanwhile, can someone explain to me why, under this concept, people keep playing as Dragonborn characters in Baldur's Gate 3? Is it because these players are actually interdimensional, shape shifting, alien, reptiles that rule over our civilization, or is it because the whole premise of this hypothesis is wrong? Perchance they are all other-kin?

Or... or... hear me out... let's assume that the premise here is true, and society burdens certain demographics with negative stigma, and as such we need to make people feel represented. But what if society is so negative towards a demographic, that that demographic learns to self-hate and disassociate to such a degree that they have to actually pretend to be animals. So, let's say, a white male kid chooses to play as the anthropomorphic character because he's been taught by society that being white is worse than being a reptile. Should we go with that line of thinking?

You're right. They're clearly the interdimensional alien reptiles.

The only humans that might need characters that look like them are very small children. Literally toddlers. They may need that in order to understand some base level personification, and to occasionally help them understand that they might not literally be what they are seeing, typically in their friend group. Most of the time, toddlers need to look like their partners, and there's been some issues with adopted children having some issues if they look properly different.

But that's it. Any adolescent that's demanding characters look like them is someone suffering from major mental health issues like Narcissism.