How often do you misrepresent yourself online?

Crackhappy@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 90 points –

I asked a related question about how often you lie, on a daily basis, but I think this is more apropos for today's general aesthetic.

85

I have no interest in misrepresenting myself, I just try to give away as little as possible while still trying to contribute to the conversation.

Yeah as a doctor with a PHD in this exact topic and a huge dick, it's not really in my interests to misrepresent myself.

This, plus giving extraneous information that may lead to incorrect presumptions.

I, Dr. Wesker, am a caricature of a real person.

I am more myself than myself, yet also exaggerated.

I am an experiment in personality and expression.

I am craving poutine.

I'm more my real self online than I am in the real world.

I would like to hear more about how and why that is, for you.

I can actually speak my mind through text than I can verbally. I become mute in most situations IRL because being physically around people gives me anxiety.

I know I kinda just spread my brains out onto Internet and it isn't pretty but it gets the dopamine going and keeps me on the treaddsmill

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Thinking about it, I definitely misrepresent myself online 100% of the time, as I never say who I am. I do say a lot of things, but in a generic sense, enough that it would be hard to pin down who I actually am. I have a deep and irrepressible sense of distrust for the state, for decades, despite what I do for a job. So instead, I have an online persona that does indeed reflect my values, but is separate from the public facing person you might know.

Unless you’re limiting yourself to very terse responses or having someone else (ideally random) write all your online content, you’re still very much at risk.

Yeah, I've come to terms with the fact that if I'm going to be this active on a public forum there is this risk. I try not to put anything too identifiable though and nothing that would be too devastating if tied to my real identity. I'm really not that interesting.

Ed, I told you to get of the internet and turn off the light, I'm tired. And if you steal the covers again tonight you are sleeping on the couch for a week. Did you remember to take the trash out? Don't sigh at me... you know how I hate that. Goodnight Ed.

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Where is Margot Robbie when you need her?

If I ever made someone online believe I'm a happy and optimistic person then I apologize for the misunderstanding.

I say by all means, keep up that lie to yourself.

All the time, it'd take too much effort to explain nuance connected to the real me.

When I don't, I often get accused of lying.

Also it's not important.

I'm not actually some pixelated anthro wolf thing. Sorry for ruining the magic.

Saying dumb shit that I regret later through? Yeah, that's me irl as well.

Yes, for anyone doxxing me, everything I say on the Internet is true. I am a middle aged lawyer with brown hair and three children.

So... you are a 20-something, bleach blonde pornstar who is single???

As the President and CEO of a fortune 500, and a neurosurgeon that does rocket surgery as a side project, there are many people relying on me to be an upstanding member of the community at all times.

In reality, most of the ways I misrepresent myself are to obscure my identity, and mostly it's by leaving things out.

I lie about everything... Even this comment is a lie.

In all seriousness, I do enough misdirection that it would be difficult to figure out who I am. But not impossible. Once in a while I'll post something that is completely out of character for me, just to throw off anyone that may actually know me.

Here is an example of why:

I have a former coworker fishing for me on Reddit and he is unaware that I no longer post on that site, or even have an account. A friend of mine clued me in to one of former coworker's posts which mixed a bit of truth in with some massive delusional lies. So once in a while I'll pull up his Reddit account to see if there is anything I need to send to my lawyer. Yeah, it's one of those situations. The post I was originally made aware of made my lawyer giddy and he was disappointed that I declined to set him loose. Former Coworker is a narcissistic loser that lives credit card payment to credit card payment anyway. The best way to deal with a narcissist is with indifference.

So yeah, my posts are true to the point where identifiable information is needed. Then I mis-direct.

It's kind asad when you are playing chess while your opponent is playing checkers. King me.

Does it matter? Anyone will draw whatever conclusion they want from written words.
Any post made represents a train of thought created in that moment, for that moment.

We like to overanalyze stuff and inferr suppositions, create entire lifetimes based on fragments of text. But more often than not, there is no hidden meaning, no greater link to map out. Though it's fun to imagine there is.

The online medium is fantasy. A separate dimension from reality. A glimpse into past moments that most of us rarely even think of while out there actually living. Shitposts, trolls, memes, bots, insights into the human psyche and so on, all mushed up together where you can't even tell the true from the false.
A simple truth is that everyone online is a lie. Whether spurred by anonymity or cowed by social expectations, the online persona is a default mask we craft for ourselves, perhaps even unknowingly.

Some say it's who they truly are, free or the debts and responsibilities of real life. But it's not completely true. Hiding this inner self is part of who we are, though we like to reject it. These posts, these thoughts are pieces of what we need to express, a lashing out at the norms that bound us we do not agree with. Yet they do not represent us, not fully.
Just as in a sudden moment of pain, we express the emotion through a verbal release of vulgarities, so too are these written declarations the release of that painful constriction society holds over our words and deeds.

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TL;DR: Always.

You. You, despite your typos, I like you. Do more of this, for anyone else reading.

Thank you and I'm sorry. This bit just flowed out on its own and I have little control over the whims of inspiration.
The great part though is that it's not something exclusive to suffering artists or talented writers. Anyone can create something of worth, even if only to a few.
We merely have to let the mind wander and flow, then look back at the trail it left behind and enjoy the result.
Creativity and imagination should not be stifled, nor worked at a demand. It's the natural that brings out the greatest smiles.

I'm going to paraphrase you with a "verbose vulgarities".

I don't go out of my way to lie or hide things, but I don't spread too much either.

On the other hand, I've stopped correcting people who default to everyone online being male.

I don't do well with lying. Because of childhood trauma. I am an open book. Even online. A boring open book though.

But I am sometimes a bit confused. Might say stuff I later realize I should have done a second thinking about. But I don't call it misrepresentation when I believed it myself, even if I later realize my mistake.

I've been sexually harassed so much online that I never correct people when they misgender me on any sort of party chat, especially with video games. I chose an ambiguous username, talk like a bro, have and naturally have deeper voice which only tends to get deeper on the mic. It's actually really nice to be able to just play video games and be a human being.

I also put on corporate speak mask when I'm at work. Some days I let it slip and always regret it.

I generally present myself as a stable and reasonable person, so quite a lot.

I bend the truth a little to avoid getting Doxxed, but nothing major.

Obviously I hide my identity but that means not telling everything about myself. I don't need to lie about it.

I don't think I misrepresent anything. I comment as myself. Only thing that comes to mind is that I like defending positions that are ethically correct but have bad optics so for example defending Elon Musk when people here spread misinformation about him despite the fact that I don't particularly even like the guy. It's understandable that people make false assumptions about me because of it but I don't really care. That's on them.

I don't, because I don't use media that ties back to my identity so why bother?

Knowing how easily someone could figure out who I am, I am very cautious to never say anything on the internet that I wouldn't back up in real life. Keeps me honest, I guess, or at the very least consistent.

I am really bad at just making shit up and it never occurs to me to lie. I can consciously withhold things, but my default is far too honest. However, do I have the ability to lie? Definitely. If I need to, there is some emotionless place I go to mentally and I just lie. That's it. Just lie.

Having both worked in information security and been the victim of data breaches, I use a different random email address and different random name for every site so that credential stuffing will fail and so that my personal information cannot be used.

Anyone that knows me personally might have enough clues to find me on here if that was their goal. Govment agencies probably could too if an agent was assigned. I try to talk about my personal circumstances in general terms, like you can know what cities I've been to and live around and maybe which corner of it but I take various measures in attempt to obfuscate any precision beyond that. One measure is I wait at least one week to several months before I post an original picture of mine, and endeavour to keep my hands or silhouette out of the photos.

I try to source my information in the same way between subject areas I am knowledgeable in and those that I'm not to lead people off the trail to where my actual expertise is.

What I can't hide is how much I love trains though. That will be how "the man" finds me.

Hmmm, I'd say I always IRL and online Try to be a decent person so by that, never. However there are plenty of things I say to create a persona online simply because it's fun, goofy and harmless. If I'm feeling goofy or want to commit to a bit, such as my earlier comments on this profile fitting in bugles anywhere I could because I thought of a funny username.

Is that misrepresenting myself? Probably by technicality. Although I can be goofy IRL too so bit of yes, bit of no, depending on how close you wanna define it

I'm that Nigerian price that offered to share some of my fortune if you had just helped me

I guess what I said there ties into this. If there is a disconnect between myself and how it comes across, it is unintentional, but I cannot guarantee being able to show that. Helps to treat all words with no angle in particular in mind.

I pretend to know how to spell, that's about it

As often as l can get away with. The more buIIshit about myself out there, the Iess IikeIy peopIe wiII be abIe to sift through it aII to find anything reaI l might have Iet sIip. Because l’II be honest, l’m not very good at poIicing what l say about myseIf. The next best option is to poIIute anything you might be abIe to gIean about me with mass amounts of misinformation.

I lie a bit to prevent me being identified, especially if I am talking about friends and family.

Not at all, I am what I am and say what I think. I'm not afraid of my ideas being sifted and correlated with my IRL person. There's nothing about me being revealed on Lemmy that my government hasn't already known about for decades. I try not to doxx myself but that's about it.

Completely on purpose? Never. Occasionally because of ignorance or a mistake? Probably once a week.

I guess I only obscure little details here and there. I don't say I like chocolate ice cream, I say I like "certain desserts". If I were to spill all the details, I would be super recognizable.

Truthfully, never, I’m always honest, but I’m also an advocate for data poisoning and obfuscation. One of these sentences is false.

I don't care enough to fake myself. I also don't hide what I think, because most people are bad in arguing, so this gives me an edge. In worst case someone will help me to get smarter and grow by correcting me. I however learned to shut up most of the time, because it makes insecure people feel more comfortable in my presence. I also don't want to sound like a know-it-all by accident.

Is it really misrepresenting if one or more of my personalities match?

I'm honest enough I worry about people finding me online, but I will occasionally shift the dates of things happening to me if I'm worried it will be too revealing and I've told some other white lies before as well. The only one that is coming to mind at the moment is I told a dead by daylight streamer I had used Zanshin Tactics to help learn Artist, when in fact I hadn't got the perk yet. I had heard a few times that it was a good offbeat pick for her to learn to predict shots though so it was a lie to make the anecdote more personal to me.

Never? I feel bad lying.... people who knowingly lie are doing a bad thing in my opinion... should really not do that

Can't trust a fucking thing in this thread

Why not? This thread is highly trustworthy yo.

If you read something I say online, and you know anything about me IRL, it won't be difficult to make the connection.

I personally find dishonesty immoral and I value behaving ethically very highly. As a result, I don't lie about myself online. I don't need to tell the whole truth, and I can say things that are untrue in specific contexts where I believe it'll be read as insincere (satirical, sarcastic, etc.) but I don't deliberately convey untrue statements as if they were true.