Hi, A/S/L?

I was thinking about the whole phenomenon of people pretending to be someone other than who they really are on the internet, and was reminded of an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit I saw last year. The episode revolved around an internet-based virtual world, clearly meant to resemble Second Life. The detectives were brought in to investigate the kidnapping of a woman whose character in the virtual world was a stripper who had gathered a sizeable internet fan base. I began to consider the different reasons why someone would want to portray themselves as something they are not, especially a stripper of all things. I think that this has something to do with the phenomenon that we see in various places on the internet where people feel that because they are behind their computer screen they can do or say anything they want.

I have definitely felt that security that is lacking in real life before, which is not to say that I have portrayed myself as someone else. I have merely felt more comfortable being frank and honest about things that I would probably not have been willing to talk about in real life. The fact that the internet is this intangible "place" where many things are not as they seem is probably liberating for a lot of people, but sort of scary for others. I know I am very aware of the fact that many of the strangers I might encounter while playing games on Yahoo! or checking my MySpace could have unterior motives. No way am I going to give out my real name or location to someone when they are nothing more to me than typed words on a computer screen. If you are taking the time to create an alternate persona for yourself on the internet, you clearly have some sort of motive in mind, and what you're selling I ain't buying!