2000-01-26

Validation

I've been thinking a lot about anonymity and how it relates to my little online world. I myself have chosen to be pretty straightforward with my diary, on message boards, and what-have-you. Still, even with my name and my image right out there, I do believe that the very nature of sitting in front of a screen, typing my thoughts out on a keyboard, gives me a certain degree of chutzpah that I might not ordinarily muster in my personal interactions. This can be good and bad.

Today, on a message board I participate in on a near-daily basis, a friend of mine was viciously flamed, for no real reason other than the fact that the anonymous poster was a total tool. I found myself getting seriously pissed at this person, not only for taking uncalled-for pot shots at my friend, but for remaining anonymous while he/she did so. That, to me, is just chickenshit behavior at its most rank.

It's like posting evil messages in somebody's guestbook and not leaving a valid email address. Cowards.

It's obviously very tempting, and very easy, to assume an alter-ego when online. It allows you to say things you wouldn't ordinarily say in the Real World. It allows you to be a regent in your own little virtual kingdom. It frees up writer's block for many of that writerly persuasion. It allows a little mystery.

I myself have chosen not to go that route entirely. "Entirely," I say, because here on my diary and elsewhere online, I have a great deal more control over how I present myself. I can edit myself several times over before I actually open my big fat yap, as it were. Even though this is my "diary," I have made the conscious decision to show only a particular side of myself through my writing here. Otherwise, I obviously wouldn't be going to all the trouble of getting people to come here and read about me and my cat and my husband and my friends. And maybe some of you think I'm cheating myself by doing so. I don't know.

I also don't know where this is really headed, but I can smell it getting deep and didactic in here, so I think I'm going to go home and have some dinner...

lisamcc at 17:48:00

previous | next