Forum Personas

[Why]

I thought I would ask the authors here for their take on this:

Research and curiously lie at the heart of most of what I do, read and to some extent write. The desire to understand the human condition in its many forms is a bottomless source of interest to me. Of late the subject of “Role playing” has been the focus of much work.

The subject it is not a new one, it litters history. The perceived or presented face as against the personal or so called “real face” The desire to be all things to all men, seems to be large part of the human psyche. Is it merely a survival trait (as in if I portray this I won’t be hurt, killed, used etc) or something else? Linked perhaps to man’s ability to think in an abstract manner.

It is the point at where the “ so called fantasy” and the “projected reality blur” that I am trying to understand to my limited ability. What makes people become the “Star trek fan”, post on the Fan forums, this type and even the so-called “serious factual ones” What makes people create a “persona” and use it in a manner very different than their behaviour patterns in the “real world.” Is it the illusion of anonymity that the Internet provides, that if gives the individual more range and scope than “real life” does.

The role players, dreamers, Walter Mitty’s and politicians <g> exist in great quantities in the real world and I wonder more and more that the Internet has created a different kind of “fantasy reality” for many people. Have people, no matter how they reason out their participation in any forum/fandom/role playing, inwardly wanting and desiring the “fantasy” over the bland reality, because it gives them power and control over every aspect of their created persona. The persona is not subject to the pressures of real life therefore it can be only what you wish it to be.

Does this damage the individual or keep them sane?

 

[English Lady]

I think it keeps them sane.

Everybody needs an outlet and some people's outlet is the net.


My husband is not a social person,fdor personal reasons i'll not go into he justy doesn't do well interacting with groups of strangers outside in the real world,so his community,his friends are all on the internet because he is comfortable there,he can portray himself as he wants,not as a shy,stuttering nervous guy which is how he comes over meeting people in the flesh.

I think we all play the different roles in life anyway, very rarely is a person the same with his or her work friends and hos or her family, or strangers,we all have chameleon personalities,and we highlight certain parts of ourselves to some people and highlight other aspects to others.

 

[oggbashan]

I have three net personas but only one on Literotica.

It might be embarrasing to me in real life to connect Og with the real me.

Apart from that I don't find it a problem. I have multiple personas in real life. I think most people do. This is just a few:

1. Family
Me as husband;
Me as father;
Me as brother;
Me as cousin;

2. Occupational
Me at work;
Me studying at evening class;
Me as community representative
and so on.

I react differently in each role.

It is a technique of social work to get an individual to map their relationships with other people and evaluate what role they play in each relationship. Once the interactions are mapped and validated, then the individual can work to develop what relationships help, and start to change or end those that cause harm.

Another tool is to find out how an individual wants to be seen by others and imagine how that perception can be achieved.

There are several libraries of books on how to change your persona to a more positive one from "I'm OK, You're OK" to the latest spin-off from "Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus."

A sign of increasing age is that some of the fantasy personas are less exotic. As a kid I might imagine winning a race at the Olympics or representing my country in a team sport. Now my fantasy personas are more limited but still inform my fiction writing.

"What would I feel like if I was this character? How would I react?"

Those questions are really about constructing a fantasy persona.

Og (who thinks he is a long dead giant King and dresses up to play King Henry VIII)

 

[wildsweetone]

Such an interesting topic, thanks for making me think Why. It's probably going to go over my head sooner or later though.

The desire to be all things to all men, seems to be large part of the human psyche. Is it merely a survival trait (as in if I portray this I won’t be hurt, killed, used etc) or something else? Linked perhaps to man’s ability to think in an abstract manner.

Being all things to all men is not really meant to be possible. I find personally, that it's more a matter of giving something of what I am to others. It's not a survival trait from my perspective. I had to think seriously about that though, it's a question I asked myself a while back. I wondered if it was a flow on from a deep emotional/physical set back I had. I've come to the conclusion it's a 'need to give' feeling. And a need to give without expectation of receiving anything in return.

It is the point at where the “ so called fantasy” and the “projected reality blur” that I am trying to understand to my limited ability. What makes people become the “Star trek fan”, post on the Fan forums, this type and even the so-called “serious factual ones” What makes people create a “persona” and use it in a manner very different than their behaviour patterns in the “real world.” Is it the illusion of anonymity that the Internet provides, that if gives the individual more range and scope than “real life” does.

I think that the internet is The Great Equaliser. This is one reason why people 'create' (whether consciously or subconsciously) a different persona to use when online. When portraying this new persona, they can achieve anything they wish. There is no holding back with communication from a mute person when online. People who are wheelchair bound are finding freedom for their thoughts and feelings when online, where they (god forbid) may be shunned from making attachments with skin to skin people. 'Real Life' is not a separate issue as far as I'm concerned, for those who are 'different' real life is anything that is done in a day to day manner - including life online.

Have people, no matter how they reason out their participation in any forum/fandom/role playing, inwardly wanting and desiring the “fantasy” over the bland reality, because it gives them power and control over every aspect of their created persona. The persona is not subject to the pressures of real life therefore it can be only what you wish it to be.

I don't doubt that a lot of people use the areas you suggest to enhance preferences that they would otherwise be unable to do in 'real life'.

Add to your thoughts the idea that people also use the internet as a safe way of exploring their own inner selves. Consider that every aspect of what makes us human beings is put to use at one time or another when online. And in that use, lessons are being learned.

Does this damage the individual or keep them sane?

In my opinion it depends how much of ones own self is lost under the new persona. The internet can be a serious addiction (I know this much at least). And I would guess that anyone who is portraying another is open equally for damage or sanity. It depends on each individual.

For myself,
I am what I am.

 

[Gabriel_Lee]

We are the fantasy and always have been. Reality does not exist in any meaningful sense in this context. We must always project ourselves in order to meaningfully exist. It is how we express ourselves that communicates to others who we are.

How we communicate depends upon what the medium is, how adept we are with it, who we are communicating to and how responsive they are to our modes and means of communication.

We are different things to different people. There is no 'reality' there unless all those different things are facets of that reality ... and if that is true, even the most outlandish of fantasies may still represent a 'reality' which is true.

Truth and reality, I have found, are only ever acceptable on our own terms.

It is not a matter of survival, but a matter of existence.

GL

 

[LorriLove]

hiya

gone over my head already wildsweetone, what ever the freek he said.

i love fantasy, but i need to hang on to my reality like a dog with a bone, you aint having it mr internet.

on here, i'm lorrilove the slutty woman who likes to wind people up.

in real life, i'm lorrilove the slutty woman who likes to wind people up., giggle.

and yes the internet does produce a hell of a lot of weird buggers who wouldn't fit into real society, well not without a straight jacket on anyway.

love yu all: lorri the slutty woman who winds people up.

 

[Gabriel_Lee]

Does this damage the individual or keep them sane?

Originally posted by Why
Does this damage the individual or keep them sane?

I know of people who have been damaged. I know people who have been given another dimension to their life.

There are very big dangers here, but these are generally not be be found within the fantasies; it's the little bits of reality that we carry with us that cause the problems.

The human brain works on patterns and scrappets of information to give us a picture of the world in which we live. The information can be very sparse and the brain does a lot of work to connect up the little pieces into something coherent.

Where the little pieces are just words lacking full emotional content and clues, supplied by someone we do not know, the brain starts to fill in these details for us and we read emotional content into what is essentially just a collection of letters of the alphabet.

In RL we learn to read people's body language, tone of voice and inflection. We deduce things from the way they dress. We have all sorts of prejudices which, while we may not consciously admit them, give us a mental image of who a person probably is or what we expect that person to be.

Without these clues, we ourselves supply the emotional content. Where does it come from? Often from our own hopes, fears and fantasies. We supply it, not the people we chat to. We build an image of a complete person in our heads on very scant and sometimes misleading information from them. When this is supplemented by our own emotional baggage, we have very powerful forces at work within ourselves.

Many people have fallen in love across the internet, many have found some soulmate. Often the reality ends up proving that things were 'seen', which simply were not there. Sometimes it works the other way and we get to see things in another which are not normally seen.

GL

 

[TheEarl]

In a way it was an extreme form of role-playing therapy, stepping outside of herself to become this voraciously sexual person, confident, in control, getting what she wanted. She now fully understood what people meant by the term 'abandon.' When she was becoming Katy Koxx, she was abandoning everything about Madeleine Witherson, existing without the constraints of fear and worry for a while. And when she returned to being Madeleine Witherson, she brought a little more of Katy Koxx back with her each time.

It was like having a secret lover: she had this other life, this other self that nobody knew about, and the thought of it was aconstant thrill. When she was in familiar company, she got off thinking how surprised they would be if they knew. The paradox was that the longer she was a porn actress, the more the public Madeleine changed into someone they'd be less surprised to learn that about.

Not The End Of The World - Christopher Brookmyre

Exactly my thoughts on the matter.

The Earl

 

[Why]

Thanks one an all for your answers. "Real life" has kept me away for a few days, but now, having read your replies it was worth the wait to return.

 

[Guest]

Perdita's "perdita"

I realize ‘role playing’ has specific meaning on this site, but I can think of no better term for existence as a human being (I of course exclude anyone’s religious or spiritual life). I think all sexual intercourse, whatever the gender, lifestyle or other proclivities of a persona, is role play. A straight man and woman involved sexually only, or sexually with romance, or sexually with love, or sexually with any variety of human interest, including marriage or other commitment, role play. It’s the nature of being unique individuals and/or opposite ‘sexes’. The same applies in same-sex situations, or any variety of sex/gender choices.

We go from being polyamorous creatures (infants with bodies that are fully erogenous) to adapting to our surroundings and personal history, and influenced by DNA, and what we make of our libido.

Why: It is the point at where the “ so called fantasy” and the “projected reality blur” that I am trying to understand to my limited ability.

For me this question applies to RL hardly differently than to online ‘life’. I read Shakespeare, poetry, history and good erotica, listen to Beethoven and opera, watch TV, see films—all to help me learn how to live. It’s why I write too, to help me think about it all.

Nothing seems delivered to my mind ‘pure’. E.g., An individual (with all variety of human makeup) in Baghdad or NYC or videotapes an event and sends it to a television news station somewhere. It is edited and polished for broadcast by certain individuals (however professional) where it is introduced by another individual (with all variety of…) and shown on a 26” wide box in my living room. What do I see? . What does anyone else see?

What are you reading at this moment? I say empty, abstract signs that are recognized as words and can mean as many things as there are persons interpreting them.

I say it’s the same with Shakespeare’s characters. Lady Macbeth never existed. She is not a real person; she is not a ‘character’ as we define character in our time. The question about how many children she had is irrelevant. “She” is empty words to be read or spoken or acted on a stage. “We” then take her for what we need, desire, are curious about or want to believe, or not. We also take her for the poetry of the words that make her up, and that poetry is always interpreted.

I like what LorriLove says so plainly and with raw humor. Her ‘dog with a bone’ and her attitude toward ‘Mr. Net’ (interesting the Net is male) sound very healthy. She makes ‘slutty’ fascinating.

Then there’s Gabriel Lee, with whom I feel most aligned on this page. His ‘little bits of reality’ I liken to my ‘empty words’.

As we leave that polyamorous state of infancy we enter into language and meet the world and our humanity. Now we reach a bit further than our parents (mine at least) and enter the Net. I don’t think it is much separate from RL as many think. Who knows how cyberspace will be perceived in a decade or two when it is as natural an intercourse as speech and in person gesture is now. A friend compared the revolution of the Net to Gutenberg’s press in his time.

Perhaps my skills are still being honed but after some time (not just on Lit.) I think I have learned a different kind of perception in “reading” persons online. I agree with the great difference in lack of body language and eye contact (not to mention pheromones), but there are subtle signs to be read once one learns another’s ‘speech’ or language online.

G. Lee: Often the reality ends up proving that things were 'seen', which simply were not there. Sometimes it works the other way and we get to see things in another which are not normally seen.

Gabe was speaking of Net-love but this applies to in person love and romance, in fact is the essence of ‘romance’, is it not?

Lastly, but not least, The Earl makes an excellent point via Brookmyre’s quote. The porn persona is a good analogy for a writer of erotica.

Excuse the length of this post but the subject is one for books and I tried to be concise and ‘myself’.

“Perdita”

Edited to make The Earl bold.

 

[Chicklet]

I am the same person both online and not. Strange? Maybe. This is exactly how I act with my friends, or people I get enough courage to speak to. It's just the courage part that gets me. This way, I can act like I am. If I saw you in real life, I probably wouldn't say anything, but I'd be thinking like this. Make sense? Maybe not. Maybe Chicklet has driven me insane.

 

[cahab]

The role players, dreamers, Walter Mitty’s and politicians <g> exist in great quantities in the real world and I wonder more and more that the Internet has created a different kind of “fantasy reality” for many people. Have people, no matter how they reason out their participation in any forum/fandom/role playing, inwardly wanting and desiring the “fantasy” over the bland reality, because it gives them power and control over every aspect of their created persona. The persona is not subject to the pressures of real life therefore it can be only what you wish it to be.

Does this damage the individual or keep them sane?

...Discuss. Is it just my suspicious mind that makes me read this as someone trying to get us to do their homework for them? Weird.

Whatever. For the record, I am a fish. And it never did me any harm, wibble wibble.

Oh, matilda the parson is so fragrant.

Thursday.

I like Jam.

 

[Gabriel_Lee]

Originally posted by perdita
Gabe was speaking of Net-love

Actually, I was speaking of net perception generally - net-love being a very specific case. Perdita's point is, however, still valid.

 

[Quasimodem]

My online persona is only an iota of my actual identity, so, er. . . I guess . . . one could say my online persona it that of The IDiot(a) . . . with apologies to Fyodor Dostoevsky.

You're right, cahab, this does feel homeworky

 

[Why]

Re: Re: Forum Personas

...Discuss. Is it just my suspicious mind that makes me read this as someone trying to get us to do their homework for them? Weird.

Haven't done "homework" for over 30 years lol... My intention was to see what other writers think. How they approach forums, how they see them and what face they put on themselves.

As for me, what I write on forums is me, my thoughts and words. I have a habit though of not saying much about my personal/real life, save for the fact I am a writer slowly working their way to publication. It is my habit to put thoughts and ideas up and see how others react and reply to them. The same way I would start a conversation in a Pub.

Having lurked here a long while before I posted, I judged that the writers here seemed to be a group that hopefully would see where and what I was aiming for.

The interaction of people is the source of my characters, forums produce a lot of interaction, both negative and positive. Through the words I draw character sketches of individuals, they of course for the most part are nothing like the real person behind the words. Then again once or twice, they have been and that is scary.

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

Very interesting thread, unfortunately I don't have time to read the other replies but here's my two-cents.

A number of differing personas will exist everywhere in every person. Lack of this natural ability can actually cause severe problems for the individual involved. Consider this:

Let's say you're 18, male, just arrived at your college dorm for the very first time, and you make three phone calls:

Call 1: Parents
Hi Mom, just got here - the dorm is pretty good but a bit small and the bathroom is Ok. The other people here seem real nice, the guy across the hall has said we can study together this year, and the library is just next to my dorm which will be great for studies. Anyway, I'm going down to get some food now - wish I could have some of your home-made pie. Love you!

Call 2: Girlfriend
Hi Jen, just got here - missing you loads! You can come visit me any weekend you like, there's some good restaurants nearby and I get student discount, and there's a double bed in my dorm! Plus the walls are pretty thick, if you know what I mean? Anyway gotta go now, see you soon - love you!

Call 3: Best mate's house
Hi guys! Man you gotta come up here soon, this place is absolutely crawling with talent, soo wish I was single right now! I passed a load of bars on the way in, the beer is real cheap and the food is great too! Some local nerd seems to wanna study with me tonight, well fuck that I got all year to study! OK see ya later, I gotta go party...

I once knew somebody at college who had no concept of these differing personas. He would swear like a trooper in front of college lecturers and talk about all manner of unsavoury things while we were sat in the corner of a quiet pub, and yet he was the most polite, well-mannered person in the whole year. And he was forever offending people...

I was gonna write more on this but now i'm late...

ax

 

[MathGirl]

Originally posted by SlaveMasterUK I was gonna write more on this but now i'm late...

Darn! Just when it was getting good.
MG

 

[Guest]

Darn! Just when it was getting good. MG

He's got a full RL, MG. I'm just grateful he shows up here occasionally. P

 

[Quasimodem]

. . . A number of differing personas will exist everywhere in every person. Lack of this natural ability can actually cause severe problems for the individual involved. . . .
ax

In “I’ll Do Anything” (1994) James L. Brooke wrote, directed and appeared in a vehicle for Nick Nolte.

Julie Kavner stole parts of the movie in the role of Nan Mulhanney, a woman so psychologically damaged by prescription mood adjustment pharmaceuticals, that she was totally unable to lie. A condition exacerbated by the fact that she lived and worked in Hollywood.

Example dialogue:

Nan Mulhanney: I couldn't help overhearing because I was intentionally eavesdropping.

The film is a bit of an oddity, originally conceived, and shot, as a musical, it was eventually salvaged as a straight comedy. No music.