Abstract
A ghost has been haunting the global imaginary all throughout the 1990s : the paradigmatic "avatar", shaped as an androgynous, hairless, slim - and blue - body , is a recurring feature within computer imaginary. This article outlines an historical and geographical mapping of this iconic template, culturally locating the contributions of academic postmodernism, feminism, the New Age movement, comics and pop culture to the building of a mythographic pattern stirring up this blue "virtual body". Three cultural borrowing methods are thus displayed : 1) détournement, 2) propaganda, 3) substratum interference.