Online identity has become a huge part of everyone's repertoire of different ways to act in today's modern technological and online dominated world. People are able to assume a different identity or many different identities online and keep their real identity a secret to those they interact with online. One “can "try on" other appearances and personalities that would be impossible (or embarrassing) to carry on in real life” (J.D. Slack and J.M. Wise, 2007). The question that I will raise in this reaction paper is how these different identities are actually different from the different identities that we adopt in different situations in, as one college student puts it, RL (real life).
Many people are involved in many different groups, organizations, social clubs, and groups of friends. In these groups, people tend to adopt different identities that will help them to be more acceptable in this environment and within the group. It is something that is almost impossible to stop. We want to be accepted by the people that group and viewed as popular or likable. It takes a great deal of maturity to be oneself at all times (if someone really knows what their true identity is!). I have seen this firsthand in a few cases. For example, I have known a classmate since the first day of freshman year when she was sweet, innocent, and genuine as could be.
She recently joined a sorority and can get into “sorority mode” where she acts totally different with her sorority sisters and fraternity dates. She does not respect her original friends in the same way she used to and tries to look “cool” in front of her new friends. She will drink more and has a much higher tendency to spend a night with a guy when she is with them. It is like she is a different person. It is her attempt to adopt a different identity to fit in with this new group.
One could argue that fabricated online identities are very similar to this by saying that in both cases, one makes a new identity to fit in with a new group. Slack and Wise (2007) (and myself) would argue much differently, however. Creating a new online identity is an extreme version of acting differently among differing groups of people. Online identities can erase gender, race, and ethnicity. Online, one is assumed to be a male Caucasian. This is a result of being in a society where the dominant classification of person is a Caucasian male. This is the mark upon which everyone measures each other in our society.
Being online allows one to shed the automatic marking done on them by others (Slack and Wise, 2007). One can bend gender and see “firsthand the different privilege accorded to the gendered individuals in spite of claims of equal treatment” (Slack and Wise, 2007). In terms of race, people are actually discouraged from revealing it and therefore most are assumed to be white. As Slack and Wise (2007) put it, “we are merely resetting the cultural defaults.” So what happens if someone's real identity is revealed online by mistake?
I am a huge Kansas basketball fan and am a part of a message board online that discusses it frequently. Sometimes, fans of opposing teams will come onto our message board to either discuss the upcoming game or to simply trash talk. After beating North Carolina, I checked the message board for any updated information. I was soon sucked into reading a war of words between a UNC fan and a large contingent of Jayhawk posters belonging to the message board. The UNC fan was being somewhat of a sore loser and it began with Kansas fans taunting this particular fan. Soon after, however, things got personal as some of the Kansas posters found pictures of the UNC fan in his profile for the website. This put things in perspective for me. Usually you do not put a name to a face while posting on message boards online, especially if one is arguing about anything.
When I saw the pictures, I immediately stopped thinking it was humorous and thought that the Kansas fans were crossing the line in insulting this poster. It is amazing that I thought it was humorous until I saw these pictures, but not before. The Tarheel fan responded to one of the Kansas fans, “Yeah, keep saying that behind the safety of your username tough guy…” I had seen this type of line from posters before on different message boards, but this poster in particular seemed so much more vulnerable than any other poster I had ever encountered, just because he had pictures of himself linked to his username. It added fuel to the fire and eventually the moderator had to intervene and shut down the thread.
My point with this is that being online literally encourages us to create alter egos in which we do not reveal any real information to others. When we do, our identity is compromised and we are viewed as human beings, not as a name or even a person behind a computer, but an actual person. This puts us at risk to not just to people who would insult us, but also to people looking to seriously hurt us. It really puts into perspective this fact and that we should be careful where, how, and what information is put online and who has access to it.
