Internet Egos

Blog post 5

It's relatively difficult to change one's identity in real life, due to limitations such as voice and appearance. However cyberspace has made it entirely possible to create multiple aliases of oneself, one for each day of the week, each of the seven sins and virtues, or simply creating imaginary egos.

 The person behind the screen is not important, the only important thing is what person is projected onto the screen.

Because everything is digital, and stored and transferred in a non-discriminating method, the person behind the screen is no longer important. What we see and hear is the person that is projected onto the monitor, what we think s/he is. This created two things. False identity for the receiver, and a false identity for the creator.

Games like World of Warcraft is great for making online friends, doing online things, but it's also as unreal as it can get.

Without the need for identification, online chatrooms, games, and forums use virtual identities for communication. It could simply be a way to test out the other side of one's personality, or experiment new ideas and fantasies without the repercussions of real life, or it could be a way hide information that the person does not want to reveal. In video games, it would be for the purpose of roleplaying. The common thing behind all of these mediums is that real identity is no longer important. What one accomplishes in the virtual world rarely means anything for the real world, however it often does make one feel better about themselves. I call this internet ego, or internet pride. Hey at least I can accomplish something on the internet, be it flaming others, spamming, writing a virus, getting to level 50 in WoW, or getting a virtual girlfriend.

High level characters in the MMORPG Aion. A pretty nice virtual accomplishment... at the cost of RL time of course.

On the other hand, it is also easy for the boundary between virtual life and real life to thin out for the player. There are people to meet online, chores (surfing the web) to do, homework to do, games to play, and even develop relationships, what's the difference between this and real life? There are many instances of people who get lost in the virtual world and ends up neglecting their real lives. I found it amusing that this site actually teaches you how to fake an identity: [How to create a fake online identity]. Some pretty amazing but eccentric stuff, such as fake name generators. Although there are the less eccentric uses such as protecting privacy for surveys, offers, and online purchasing, mostly it is used for online games, chatrooms, or simulators such as Second Life.

It's hard to get that sense of satisfaction unless you actually do something in real life. It's so much easier in the virtual world to accomplish something and get that huge ego isn't it? It's a pretty pessimistic viewpoint, but a realistic one due to the addictive qualities of the cyberspace.