Upon reading Identity Crisis, I took a look at my own personal online persona. I take a two sided approach to my online life. Usually, I'm just me. I like to tell it like it is with logic, snarkiness, and all around attitude that everyone loves or loathes. Of course, I have a soft side as well. I like to talk about the things that really affect me in important ways, such as family life and relationships. At heart I'm an absolute nerd, and will talk about wrestling and video gaming at a moments notice, and relate all of life's experiences to a wrestling angle or video game moment. Of course, there is also my alter ego. He's derived from the nickname my best friend gave me a few years ago, JC Superfreak. Together, my friend and I formed the "Freak 'n Slack Connection" (with his nickname being Slacker Cracker), derived from the "Rock 'n Sock Connection," a WWF tag team from the late 1990s. Everything about JC is me, just ramped up a notch. Think I'm annoying now? Magnify that by 10. Loud, crass, and brash, he will tell you like it is on a moments notice. He's kind of like my evil twin/heelish side.
So, it comes as no surprise to me that this alter-ego is derived from a part of my personality that is not usually seen by everyone. Identity Crisis talks about this on page 261. It makes a bit of sense to me that my online personality alter-ego is just a part of my real personality that just manifests itself. In the real world, there is no way I'd have any sort of friendship if I told off everyone. That's be stupid. Maybe the online personality is a way for these feelings to come out.
What's scary is the people that utilize their online personality as their real personality, and make friendships with people they think that are real, but are totally different in real life. I won't go into the details, but this happened to me when I was younger. Usually, the people who make their real selves their online selves are just looking for an outlet of their personality where they think it will be appreciated. In this light, I think of the outcast high school student who just wants a friend. There's a lot of those kids out there, I was indeed one of them.
The online personality is something that can be studied further and really be something psychologist should analyze.
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3 comments:
I think that any alter-ego, whether it's on the internet or not, is pretty sweet. My roommate came up with a pretty hilarious frat boy alter ego for me. His name is Rob, and he has an extremely low voice. He loves beer, babes, football, and America. Rob truly is a man's man. I usually only take over this alter-ego to get a laugh or two, which is probably a good thing, since Rob would be a pretty big jerk if he was real.
I remember when I was ten or so and I discovered chat rooms I used to go online and pose as a robot for the purpose of annoying people. I really enjoyed the anonymity of it. People feel safe on the internet to be whatever they want to be that day.
Who doesn't love a little alter ego action? I don't think it's weird at all. That's probably why I don't think posing as something else on the internet is such a big deal. People always say that going away to college is an opportunity to recreate yourself to be who you want to be; I don't see why that's not okay online.
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