Real life v.s. Online personality

PTH2009

A little Different imo

I can get carried away with opinions online that I would not in real life as I'm a bit shy and speak with a very irritating low voice. Sometimes we can get a bit carried away in our online life's and say things we don't mean, in person we hold back a little, behind a keyboard where there's no voice to answer back (only text on a screen) we can lose it a little.

My posts on the gig's fourm, wrestling and few others are close to my real life personality, while on sports fourms I mite be a bit more negative than I am in person . I suffer from depression and anxiety in real life my online is a little bit of an escape from reality

Arghus

I try to be the same really. What's the point in creating a distinction?

Ben Gadot

Arghus wrote: »

I try to be the same really. What's the point in creating a distinction?

Some people might not be aware of the distinction. Like they can find it easy to get on well with someone online only to have the usual social barriers awaken once they meet in real life (imagine both were in fact shy people in reality, makes for an awkward beginning to say the least). They might know they are shy already but have tricked themselves into believing that they won't be now. It's an easy thing to happen when you get on well with someone online.

People can be different in a good way online. It's not just a place that can attract the worst of people but the best of them as well. But it's much easier to be yourself online than to be a horrible and reprehensible prick, that's why the latter disgusts me so much (it takes actual effort to intentionally hurt someone).

RDM_83 again

Grayson wrote: »

The outrage some people have over the most trivial of things. You'll find a thread started by someone who managed to find the most obscure blogger, posting the dumbest thing and suddenly there's outrage. You get the image of someone somewhere sitting there, red faced and shouting at the screen.
They're probably sitting on a couch after dinner, expressionless, farting and have eastenders on in the background.

Probably true, but I would class those as the "angry" posters, the absolutely Moral posters would be a different category for me.

e.g Poster A "Look at this blog complaining about fat shaming, don't they realize thats encouraging obesity"

"Moral" Poster "I struggle to care about something so petty when there is so many children starving across the world"

IMO opinion the angry posters are more natural, it is a common enough thing to have random sh-t talking conversations about petty annoyances, in real life that sort of virtue signaling is a lot less common.
I also think the nature of real life interactions guards against this to some degree in that people have a known unfiltered history so they can't present themselves in a near perfect light without being pulled on it.


Then again thats just my opinion and online I'm definitely petty with lots of minor grievances and annoyance triggers.

_Whimsical_

I think I'm a little different. I can be more robust in my argument style online whereas in person I can be very conscience of not giving offence. Not in a political correct "they won't like me if I say x" way, but I have a bit of a fear of hurting people's feelings, I can be overly tuned into other people in that regard generally, so it can colour how I behave and speak my mind.

Also I suppose I meet with less vitriolic strong opinions in person. Online in response to what I meet here I can probably come across as a bit more polarised in my views than I actually am. I feel like I can express or explore more nuance in general conversation sometimes.

That said I think the cut and thrust of Internet interactions like forums has definitely been a positive for my real life personality as I have always been very quiet and even reluctant to share an opinion on this in the past. Having had the head repeatedly eaten off me online or my opinion rubbished as actually made me a bit more confident in defending myself and realising that expressing opinions people don't agree with or even react badly to won't kill me.

_Whimsical_

Ben Gadot wrote: »

People can be different in a good way online. It's not just a place that can attract the worst of people but the best of them as well. But it's much easier to be yourself online than to be a horrible and reprehensible prick, that's why the latter disgusts me so much (it takes actual effort to intentionally hurt someone).

That's actually very true, for most people it does bring out the best in them, their humour, their willingness to share their experience in order to relate to or help another person, their unfiltered opinion, very often their best self.
However I've noticed for some people their online persona can be more an expression of who they wish they were rather than who they actually are. For example their opinions on lying, cheating and a myriad of moral issues don't necessarily reflect how they'll actually behave when confronted with the same situations in their own lives. For that reason I don't know if you can really assume you know someone from just interacting online. It's like a sandbox for real life sometimes,"here's how i would behave ideally" as opposed to a real life simulation.