People with two identities online.

[Gingerbread Demon]

I probably should not get involved in this but just discovered someone I know who has two identities online with two different birth dates.

I can't think of anything legal you'd need that for, but it's nagging at me to say something and ask them why.

 

[Timewalker]

Why should it matter, unless they're breaking a RL law and committing fraud or somesuch thing?

 

[Amaris]

I probably should not get involved in this but just discovered someone I know who has two identities online with two different birth dates.

I can't think of anything legal you'd need that for, but it's nagging at me to say something and ask them why.

"On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

The anonymity of the internet makes it possible for some people to live the life they want to live, to be who they want to be. There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's legal.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

"On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

The anonymity of the internet makes it possible for some people to live the life they want to live, to be who they want to be. There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's legal.

I guess. I think I'll leave it alone for now, just it's odd because I've never seen someone do this kind of thing, well not someone I know anyway.

 

[Amaris]

I guess. I think I'll leave it alone for now, just it's odd because I've never seen someone do this kind of thing, well not someone I know anyway.

It happens more often than you might think. I'm generally the same person everywhere I go, but not always.

 

[MacLeod]

With people becomming more security conscious online perhaps it's something to do with that.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It happens more often than you might think. I'm generally the same person everywhere I go, but not always.

"shugs"

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

With people becomming more security conscious online perhaps it's something to do with that.

Acutally that's what I am thinking, but in some situations that might actually get you into trouble. It's like they have one profile and birthday as they're an entertainer, and one regular profile with their real birthdate. I mean I get why you'd do that it just seems very odd to me.

 

[Kor]

I second the sentiment that as long as they're not trying to defraud anyone or break any laws, who cares?

I certainly don't use the persona of "Kor" on sites that have nothing to do with Star Trek.

Kor

 

[thestrangequark]

Acutally that's what I am thinking, but in some situations that might actually get you into trouble. It's like they have one profile and birthday as they're an entertainer, and one regular profile with their real birthdate. I mean I get why you'd do that it just seems very odd to me.

If they're an entertainer that actually makes a lot of sense. Especially if it's a woman: there's still so much agism in that industry.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I have the same persona and opinions everywhere I go on the 'net - but often, different names, ages, genders, even species. Part of it is the RPGer in me: I just like things to be interesting, and usually, appropriate for context (like being USS Triumphant, here). The other part is the security issue MacLeod mentioned. I've tried to make myself hard to track since before HMTL existed. It works, too - search engines won't find a real picture of me, so far. And that's not for any illegal reason, but because I read 1984 at a fairly early age.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

I made a second identity on FB and friended it because it the time I was playing games like Farmville, and I wasn't getting enough help from my FB friends, so I would log in to the other identity and give myself all the items I was requesting from "friends." Otherwise I don't use it.

I might create another identity if I needed to, because my normal identity is connected to my friends and family, and if I needed something outside of that for safety's sake (say, if I wanted to troll Anons or finally raise that army of Rampaging Killbots I've always wanted) that would be useful.

 

[JoeZhang]

I have a different identity wherever I go - why wouldn't I?

 

[Mudd]

Tens of millions of people do this.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I know a couple of women who have two different identities - one using their real name that the world can see, and another that uses another name and a different birthdate and they only tell close friends about. They do this so that their abusive ex-husbands only get to see the staid account that they only occasionally use whereas they mainly only post to their second identity.

I also imagine that some people have a Facebook identity that they let their employers know about and a second identity that they use for their more private life.

 

[Timewalker]

People who post on the Canadian news site CBC.ca are faced with being forced to use real names later this year, because TPTB think it will make people "nicer" and they want everything "transparent."

Many of us aren't happy about that. As I see it, CBC has my RL information in their database, as I used it to sign up for the account. There's no need for my RL name to be publicly visible - particularly as some of the things I've said on that site are not in keeping with the majority political opinions in this region.

Some people fear for their jobs, as well. It would be awkward at best for someone who has posted opinions or revealed things that don't mesh with the official policies of their employer. That person could end up fired.

So there are understandable and valid reasons to have more than one online identity.

 

[Santaman]

I never use my real identity online, I'm not on social media or whatever and even if you knew my real name you won't be able to find me on google or any other search machine, online I have several identities this one being the most well known, I'm not a total recluse though, I've met quite a few board people from this and other boards, they know I am quite real.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think it's kind of weird that the OP is named CocoPops when he's apparently baffled at having two identities

 

[Spot's Meow]

I have created fake identities online before, for various mundane purposes. Now I have one I use as my "spam account," i.e. I want to sign up for a company's website but I don't want to give them my real name, phone number, address, birth date, etc. Sometimes the level of information they require to create an account is absurd. So I will give them my other email address with a fake name/birth date.

Back when I was a teenager, I created alternate identities more for privacy, to hide my super-top-secret feelings about how dramatically awful life was. I would have various online diaries/journals shared only with specific people, with different identities attached to them. I would have felt like the world was ending if I knew a family member was reading my inner-most thoughts on LiveJournal (but it was okay for the rest of the internet to read them). So basically, I've also used alternate identities as a way to express emotions that I felt I couldn't express in my real life.

My inner-most thoughts aren't nearly that interesting anymore, so I haven't felt a need to create an alternate me in quite some time.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Every January 1st I get sooooooooooo many birthday wishes from forums and sites and businesses most of which I've completely forgotten about.