65 replies to this topic

[*Anastasia]

How "you" is your online personality?

His Highness recently brought this question up in another thread, but I felt it deserved its own topic. Some posts from the thread relating to the concept follow.
 
 

I don't think mine is too different from my RL personality, although I suppose the people who've met me might be better judges of that.  I don't feel like I act any differently, but maybe I do and just don't notice.

 

I don't think net me and real me are terribly different. Much more outspoken, for sure, but not all that different in what is being said or why. I'd say that my "evil" and "cunning" form is reserved for games, usually longer board and/or card games with lots of potential player interaction, where it can be put to use without issue. On a related note, I can't stand people who take games too personally. Most games are won by making sure no one else does. In order for one to win, everyone else must lose. They are meant to be brutal, underhanded, sneaky contests of guile and people who get offended because their friend or significant other took necessary steps to further their own goal of victory ruin that.

 

Yeah, I guess now that I think about it more, it would be fair to say that "Jorost" is a character, of sorts, that I am playing online.  It happens to be a character not all too different from the RL me, in the way that Jerry Seinfeld's TV character was not all that different from the real-life Jerry Seinfeld, but still it's a character.  Real-life me makes a lot more compromises than Jorost.  And Jorost is a LOT more successful.  Heh.
 
Wait, that's not really funny... 

For myself, I can safely say that me in real life and me online are very much the same. The one key difference is that, like Shokkou, I'm much more outspoken online, while in real life I'm quite reserved. By comparison, the 'me' you see online is perhaps better likened to 'me' in real life with a few drinks in her. I do not put on a character or façade online, or try to act differently from how I do offline, though, and when it comes to divisive or controversial issues, the views I express online are wholly consistent with my views elsewhere.

So, how about the rest of you?

[Haflinger]

My CN persona is quite a bit different from the real me. Really, a lot.

 

It's mostly the real me that posts here in this forum though.

[Shokkou]

I tried messing with a CN persona for a little while, but it was too much work to keep going so I stopped. It was fun while it lasted though.

[*Anastasia]

My CN persona was, for my roleplay, a sort of a fictionalized account of myself at the time I made my nation. As a nation simulation, this was, of course, heavily based on politics more than other factors. Since then, my political views have evolved quite substantially, while my roleplay never did, and as such, while Michael von Preußen was initially very similar to myself, this is no longer the case.

[Manoka]

I'm pretty much the same. xP

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

My penis is even bigger in real life.

[Redezra]

I like to consider myself rather good at fabricating anonymous personae.

 

I have ~6-7 personae? (this you cannot validate.) All of them have wildly differing life stories, live in different places, do different things, etc. I am a hydra, many heads, one body, and I'm so good at it, nobody, even those who interact with multiple copies of me, know it's the same person.

 

I should really work in security (if I don't already). Most of my online existence is an endless sea of memorized and invented lies that I effortlessly swim through. It's a skillset I learnt in Drama, I'm good at method acting. Really good at method acting.

 

Trick is, I don't use any of them for long, too much Real-Dezra seeps into them, so my longest serving persona are more real me than fake me. "Redezra" has been in operation since 2000~ish, so it's safe to say that she's the closest you'll get to me unless you met me IRL. Redezra is the only persona that shares the same address as me, does the same job as me, likes the same things as me, heck, she pretty much is me, apart from being even more willing to speak her mind loudly. That's right, real me is a little less likely to tell you six ways from sunday that you're wrong. Heck some of my real life friends are really religious and superstitious and I get along with them just fine. I guess I use this forum as an escape from being nice~

 

Now for how this affects communications. Lots of people don't like when they figure out that the people they may have feelings for aren't exactly real. And I understand that, I've been at the receiving end of that. I think what people need to do is let go of "reality" on the web. We aren't real. We're extensions of people's psyche into a formless, and infinite medium. When I talk to Jorost, I don't think that he may be some girl in France, and there's no way I can tell.... He's Jorost, the egotistical, quasi-British-American nurse that owns the forums. When I talk to Anna, I don't wonder who the person on the other side of the screen is, Anna is an intelligent Canadian chick with a taste for the odd. Real isn't important, and if you believe it is, you're only being manipulated by less than savory characters that don't.

[Shokkou]

What is it that separates a person's psyche from that person though? What makes someone's online or offline persona "real" or even "more real" than the other? Everyone, regardless of online or off, has walls and facades separating the "real" them from those around them. Some of these may be harmful to their mental health, some may be helpful or even necessary for them to function. This brings up an interesting little bit of information. It is general convention to refer to one's offline acquaintances as "RL friends." A few years back I got out of the habit of doing this. Why? Because being online is a part of my life, and the people I'm talking to are quite possibly as real as those I talk to offline. There's no way to know with absolute certainty, but then there's really no way to know if someone you're dealing with offline is behaving as their "real self" either. Nowadays I refer to them as "local friends" or "old Army friends" or the like. Just my two cents.

[Redezra]

True, I just believe the meatspace/cyberspace division is usually a bit wider than the this-group/that-group division.

[Shokkou]

You mean the difference between how people act online and offline versus how they act offline among different people? If so, I'd say that the two are interconnected. I act differently here than I did at MI6. I was behaving the same way offline me would, sans extreme reticence, in MI6. I behave here the same way offline me would with the same stipulation. I put up or remove walls and facades as the situation warrants, online or off. I don't think everyone is that way, but I also have no way of determining how many people are one way or the other as far as this is concerned. All I can say is how it is for me.

[Rogal Dorn]

whether it's real life or online i am the same person. my CN username is different than my username elsewhere though, mostly because my main username at the time was taken in CN (the bastards) and i've stuck with Rogal Dorn ever since, even through three different nation incarnations. im not too different because in most online communities i have a few friends that i end up knowing pretty well in rl and such, and the same is usually true when i get to know online friends RL they dont have an "online persona" schtick. even when i'm on 4chan or something i dont act like a raging asshole-racist-bigot even though the complete anonymity is there and it's what everyone else does/is.

[KiWi]

whether it's real life or online i am the same person. my CN username is different than my username elsewhere though, mostly because my main username at the time was taken in CN (the bastards) and i've stuck with Rogal Dorn ever since, even through three different nation incarnations. im not too different because in most online communities i have a few friends that i end up knowing pretty well in rl and such, and the same is usually true when i get to know online friends RL they dont have an "online persona" schtick. even when i'm on or something i dont act like a raging asshole-racist-bigot even though the complete anonymity is there and it's what everyone else does/is.

Rules 1 & 2.

[Shokkou]

He didn't break them. He was speaking about the entire board, not a particular section thereof. The rule is about /b/, not 4chan as a whole.

[Rogal Dorn]

He didn't break them. He was speaking about the entire board, not a particular section thereof. The rule is about /b/, not 4chan as a whole.

shocktarts up there knows whats up

[Redezra]

Wait... what?

[Shokkou]

Wait... what?

 

 

You mean the difference between how people act online and offline versus how they act offline among different people? If so, I'd say that the two are interconnected. I act differently here than I did at MI6. I was behaving the same way offline me would, sans extreme reticence, in MI6. I behave here the same way offline me would with the same stipulation. I put up or remove walls and facades as the situation warrants, online or off. I don't think everyone is that way, but I also have no way of determining how many people are one way or the other as far as this is concerned. All I can say is how it is for me.

[Redezra]

Rule one and two of what? o.O

[Rogal Dorn]

the rules of the asshole of the internet, /b/

[PrinceVegeta]

The way I act online is actually very different then in person. I happen to be more lively online, while offline, I'm kind of a...rock to be frank when you first meet me. I may come off as mean, mainly because I don't like to speak first when in person, and I do tend to give looks of judgement and disgust, but only because I'm skeptical of people, and I try to figure them out first thing. I'll just sorta sit and listen to you. Like a rock. Except alive and having the possibility to reply. 

 

However online, oddly, I'm very different. I'll talk to you, I'll joke around a bit. I'm less serious. Possibly because it's online and doesn't have as much significance as an in person meeting is. So I don't sit back as much. Plus it's difficult to really get to know someone online, even through a voice chat. You have to see a person, and watch the body language to get a better understanding of who that person is. As far as intelligence and wisdom goes I keep that in mind no matter what. My views will always be the same no matter what type of persona I put on, although I will most likely convey them differently.

[Learz]

Rule one and two of what? o.O

http://www.urbandict...Of The Internet

 

Backstory is that people started to invent random rules here and there. 1 and 2 do, in fact, come from /b/, as does 100. Rule 34, obviously, came about in other places, and the number was randomly picked. 35 and 36 followed shortly. A few other ones were filled in here and there.

 

Then some asshat decided to sit down and create all the rules of the internet.