Who Do I Want to Be Today?

Introduction

Who am I? It's a frequently asked/rarely answered question. So much of our lives is fixed, 'pinned down' due to physical characteristics, personal beliefs, or cultural norms. I am a Caucasian woman in my late 30's. How can that ever be changed? I'll never be able to turn back the clock. I could possibly pass as male or hide my white skin with surgery, but it's expensive and painful. Society expects me to act like, and be treated as, a woman. Furthermore, if I find a way to change myself, to what will I change? I can never be sure what it's like to be male until I've lived as one. What if I don't like it? Changing back won't be easy.

There is an answer, of sorts, to the desire to explore the 'other side of the fence.' Physical cues can only be interpreted visually. On the Internet no one can see you, no one can know who or what you are unless you tell them. In some senses the net has become the ultimate 'mask': as the cartoon says, 'On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.' Consequently, pseudonyms are the norm on the net, for what you say you are is who you are. It's true you can log onto the net using your own legal name, although it's not easy. However, a majority of the time there is some variant or shortening of the legal name (i.e. bcollier@example.com), or a nickname (i.e. collie@example.com), or a personally preferred or humorously meant alias (i.e. incrediblefoxybabe@example.com) which may have nothing whatsoever to do with reality. In fact, these aliases are usually used even in situations where the true names of the users are known. Thus, unless the alias is also the legal name of the user, all communication of any sort is done through the mask of the alias.

This effect is exacerbated on the MU*s, where logging on is accomplished under the name of the character the player has chosen to portray. For example, on the MU* FurryMUCK I played a character named Santiago, who was an anthropomorphic collie. 'Santiago' was originally the name of a childhood playmate. My 'real-life' nickname of 'Collie' inspired my e-mail ID of collie@XXXXX.com. 'Collie' was a play on both my legal surname of Collier, and the family choice of pets. The inter-pseudonymous connections can become both extremely multi-layered, and ubiquitous, through both RL and VL, especially if you decide to play many characters instead of just one. It is, in fact, probably an example of the growing ubiquity of the net use of pseudonyms that I can't get my stupid machine to not color and highlight the fake e-mailer IDs I wrote in the previous paragraph.

Why has use of pseudonyms becomes the norm? Partially it seems inspired by a sense of humor. I have participated in role-playing MU*s where frequently the players chat together OOC, yet maintain the body language, typed accent, or attitudes of the character. Sometimes it's simple things, like 'Santiago wags her tail,' where other players present know the character 'Santiago' was a canid male, and the player is a human female. In a case like this the user is 'playing fast and loose' with both gender and species in a humorous fashion: the character would ordinarily be referred to with a male adjective, but by using 'her' the player notes that she is speaking OOC. Furthermore, since it is obvious she could not have a tail she both juxtaposes incongruous elements for an ironic or amusing effect, and also appropriates body language not of her species to denote an emotion in a fashion she is not capable of in FTF communication.

However, in other cases there seemed to be almost a need for the mask of the character. I recall one situation where the player's gender was not that of the character, and yet while OOC the player insisted that all present use the gender of the character in referring to the player. After speculation, I came up with a hypothesis to explain this behavior: MU* participants use their pseudonymous virtual personas while OOC to express aspects of their personalities they do not feel comfortable expressing in real life.