Do you act yourself online or do you act like someone else?

I am pretty much myself online.

I'm me.

I am the real me online...
Really...I WISH I was pretending to be someone else online and that I was a happy go lucky person in real life!

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

Do you act yourself online or do you act like someone else?

I am pretty much myself online.

interesting question, the wandering poet.

I certainly don't act like someone else although I guess a different part of myself shines more brightly on menewsha.

A large percentage of what I do right now is study learn study learn study learn with a lot of teaching, volunteering, and other things in between. It's all very wonderful but of course busy.

so on menewsha, I concentrate more on other menewshans' discussion topics rather than that busy part of my life that I spend all day and night talking with my friends, classmates, and colleagues about anyway. I might mention it here and there but I don't type about it as much as other topics that come up in the threads

When I was smol and very insecure on the internet...
I actually took a friend's photos, made up an entirely fake life for myself and paraded around the internet pretending to be someone I completely was not...

It turned out that I made excellent friends on the internet, who, when they found out that I was fake, ended up deciding to not talk to me anymore. It hurt because the friends I made were really, truly very awesome and I can't even imagine how many friends I probably would still have had if I didn't lie like that.

So ever since then, I've made a choice to be 100% me and 100% honest on the internet. (Even to a fault.)

Ava - Well, no matter what you've got us Menewshans ^^

Salvete - I had no idea you had such a busy lifestyle o.o

Inzane -

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

Ava - Well, no matter what you've got us Menewshans ^^

Salvete - I had no idea you had such a busy lifestyle o.o

Inzane -

I do lol

---------- Post added 09-10-2017 at 12:54 PM ----------

now you know :D

Internet me is pretty much all the things I think throughout the day but don't say. No one with whom I could share it is around.

Inzanebraned: You come across to me as happy-go-lucky, I could say! The voice I associate with you is loud and energetic. I rarely read your posts in a negative tone. It freaks me out when I do.

But look. I saw this thread and was like, "I have got to say my piece on the concept of having a true self."

Because of my growing interest in and knowledge of astrology, I question the idea that there's one central "true self." True self, meaning we have one consistent personality all covered up by other personalities we fake so we can be accepted. When people talk about why they like someone they're close with, they'll say, "I like how I can be the real me with them." In psychology, there's the "onion model," which says we have a core self that cannot be changed. As people get closer to us, they "peel away layers of the onion," or discover less and less superficial versions of ourselves and gradually get to know the "real" us. Sadly, the only instruction I've had on this theory was in the light of disproving it, so I won't say much about it.

Right now, if I had to give an answer to the question, "Do people have a core identity?" I would say, "Yes, but it's not so simple."

What's a fake you? The way you treat strangers? The way you act at work? The person you have to pretend to be around your nutzo family because their opinions were plucked out of a freezer that's been preserving them since 1293? (I'm aware freezers didn't exist back then. Shut up. )
Why do you call that fake? Because you're hiding things!
With anyone, no matter what your relationship with them, you're going to show them what you think is most important for them to see—and avoid the opposite of that. Is that fake? Heavens no. You've got a whole bunch of traits, but you think certain people should see certain ones. How you decide which people should see which ones depends on your life experiences. You're not a single type of person. You're so, so many types of people. I'll call them personas. The sum of these personas? That is the real you. There's your core identity. If you're someone who swears you're at least ten different people trapped in the same body, this idea is for you.

What I'm saying is, someone who just met you already knows the real you. What they don't know is the whole real you. For that, they'd have to see you with friends. With a lover. At school or work. At home. Angry. Sad. Serious. Silly. They'd have to see how you treat yourself, and what you do when you're left alone with your thoughts… You bet every one of those has its own persona that you decided to form because you thought it was best.
We call some sides of ourselves our "true self" because those sides aren't about what people want to see. They're about what we want people to see. Perhaps when lamenting about not being able to show someone the real us, we should ask ourselves what it is we want to share and why, and we could learn something about who we are.

I think that within the core identity is a common motivation that keeps everything working together. It's like an anchor. Without it, all the personas would float off on their own and not know why they do what they do. How much the anchor shows in our actions, I'm not sure. I think of it more as a reason the personas form than a way we act.

So, like, for those of us who are super quiet IRL but crazy on the Internet, those two places call on different personas. Whatever we've experienced IRL has taught us to keep to ourselves—while the Internet encouraged us to get out there and socialize. Some people are the opposite, and some are the same with both! All of those people are always being their true self. Even if they actively hide information and pretend to be someone else. The reason they're doing it will tell you what the shown persona considers most important. And, as for the anchor, whatever the persona considers most important, is most important because it can get the anchor what it wants.

TL;DR: I think of the "real you" not as a single personality, but as a whole bunch of personalities you consider useful for different people/things/situations/whatever. So… I say Internet!you is always the real you.

SHOUTOUT TO ME FOR TURNING POET'S SIMPLE THREAD INTO THIS HOT MESS!

I don't think it's a hot mess amane I agree with you that people act differently towards different people and in different situations

---------- Post added 09-10-2017 at 03:48 PM ----------

People even type differently in different situations, as you can see.

---------- Post added 09-10-2017 at 03:50 PM ----------

sometimes when I post or when I text, I might not use the right punctuation or not capitalize things when I need to or write a run-on sentence and leave off the period at the end

Other times, I'll use the right grammar, but I'll end the sentence with a smiley face :)

Alright amane hit it on the head. We have an answer lol

Mostly. The games industry tends to be pretty Twitter-savvy, so my Twitter uses my real name and I frequently end up tweeting about things that affect me on a daily basis - what games I'm playing, political things, etc. Menewsha's probably the place where I'm still the most anonymous, but I'm sure based on my post history I wouldn't be too hard to find.

Im quite possibly more myself here than in realworld.

more myself online than i am irl, i guess

Originally Posted by Pkero

Mostly. The games industry tends to be pretty Twitter-savvy, so my Twitter uses my real name and I frequently end up tweeting about things that affect me on a daily basis - what games I'm playing, political things, etc. Menewsha's probably the place where I'm still the most anonymous, but I'm sure based on my post history I wouldn't be too hard to find.

I remember you even shared your website with us that had your name on it lol

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

Do you act yourself online or do you act like someone else?

I am pretty much myself online.

Everyone else is taken so, yeah, I act like myself here.

I feel like there are always different mes for different situations. I act differently with everyone but I don't even really know who the real me is.

I'm told that I act the same online as I do IRL. If I'm roleplaying then obviously I'm not acting the same as I do IRL but just chatting and out of character talk then yes, I am pretty much the same.

I have to say I act my real self more online than irl.
There are so many taboo things I like to talk about that in my area I'd probably get locked up in the hospital for lol! No one else in my area likes the same music, anime,
or video games I like. Online is the only place I can fully express myself and not look totally weird lol!

What sort of taboo topics are so bad you'd get locked up for them?

Well people around here seem squeemish about bondage,
demons, drugs, and anything weird. Hahaha I listen to Malice Mizer, Yuki Kajiura,
Boom Boom Satelites, and LM.C a lot. Hahaha Most people run away when they listen to that music. Then I like video games such as the Persona series, Galerians, Xenogears all really messed up in the head games~! So yeah I can't be the real me irl.

Aww... but bondage is fun...

It's a shame that people are so far under a rock where you're from. New things should be exciting not bad.

Originally Posted by MistressCR

I have to say I act my real self more online than irl.
There are so many taboo things I like to talk about that in my area I'd probably get locked up in the hospital for lol! No one else in my area likes the same music, anime,
or video games I like. Online is the only place I can fully express myself and not look totally weird lol!

I'm like this too. I'm the librarian type that seems quiet and "normal" until you really get to know me. People are often surprised I listen to the music and watch the movies I do. My best friends are all people I've meet later in life at Sci-Fi conventions because in high school no one got me.

*raises hand* I am one of the squeamish folks who make things have to be taboo.

My image of self-representation on a site influences how I see myself and therefore how I act. I changed my avatar on a chat program to a vintage girl, and ever since, I've been picturing myself as her whenever I send messages. And that is why I don't use real people/characters for avatars! Be they the "image" type of avatar or the "dress it up with money you earn from posting" type. That's also why I can't use a boy avatar.

I feel that I am bigender/genderfluid so sometimes I have male avatars, sometimes female. But I don't, like...lie about my life or hobbies.

Im the same person online and in real life. What happens sometimes is that online my personality shines through way better, also in person when i get nervous i tend to stutter which cant really happen online. I also feel that online i can be myself without getting judged.