Webupon

In 1998 a select group was instructed to join message boards and other ‘human face of the Internet’ sites, using an identity that was not their own. This was not a simple change of name, but a complete metamorphosis, where one might adopt the persona of a different race/ethncity/nationality for the purposes of attracting and comparing responses.

In some cases proxies were used as there were rudimentary IP trapping applications to prevent the actual connecting local from being discovered.

Many of the participants had fantastic stories to tell; how Al, the white male would be treated with respect, how Keisha, posting the same things would be insulted. The stereotypes were ‘proven’ to have as much validity in 1998 as they did in 1898.

Over the decade, the use of false identities has become so ‘the norm’, that almost nothing is what it seems.

Crazed fans create sites in the name of their Idol, many actually moving bag and baggage into the identity, while others spend their days fooling Netizens into believing they are actually communicating with the object of their affection.

Nigerian scammers have had fantastic success pretending to be white American males or Russian women, and live off the money sent to them by their dupes.

The likelihood you are being scammed is so great that a wise Netizen accepts nothing, not age/sex/location/identity/race. Communicate with others as if they are colourless/genderless amalgams.

In many cases, it doesn’t matter who or what you are communicating with. One doesn’t need to ‘qualify’ to discuss the Championship Cup, the new Star Trek Movie, or political issues.

Maybe as a extra, it is good to know that this is the opinion of an African, or a woman, or a Muslim, but it really doesn’t have all that much impact on your life.

What does have impact is when you actually believe you are communicating with a celebrity or a person of particular physical or geographical features, and it is those features which provoke your communication.

Often the ‘alter ego’ is harmless. A sixty year old woman who is ‘young’ thinking, presents herself as a thirty year old in a discussion on domestic violence, or current events.

However, when it’s a sixty year old pederast pretending to be a twelve year old on a children’s site, the dangers are evident.

Sometimes, for political mileage, people pretend to be what they are not. Often in debates about homosexuality a member of the gay community will pretend to be a married man and use these credentials to put forward the gay agenda.

Other times a man will pretend to be a woman and speak against abortion, making it seem that the information is coming from ‘one of us’.

Hence, the debate becomes tainted, especially where one has created a number of duals all agreeing with him/her so it seems that there are 24 people when there is only one.

Being able to live out a fantasy on the ‘Net is most often harmless. Pretending to be beautiful or popular or important, is sometimes rather enlightening. The opinions of a fourteen year old boy suddenly get credence when he uses the nick ‘Socrates’ and claims to be fifty, the unattractive woman, using that pretty photo is suddenly treated with a deference she has never known.

It stops being harmless when people are fooled by it to the extent they feel used and hurt. It stops being harmless when one can not escape the persona they created and are trapped having to keep lying to maintain the friendships.

To protect yourself, don’t believe anything. Unless you have personally met the Netizen, you can’t be sure, so leave room for doubt.