In the era of cyberspace, people could recreate their life through a whole brand new identity. A shy person could appear bold and adventurous on the online society, and a ‘rotten-to-the-core’ person could ‘start anew’, perhaps being the goody-two-shoes while playing a massively-multiplayer-online- role-playing-game (MMORPG). One who is not satisfied with its look could change itself into a beauty wit just a matter of clicks and a moderate-income person could be a multi-billionaire online. With all these advances then, a question is raised – which is the real ‘I’ then? The one that keeps clicking on the mouse in front of the computer screen or the one that have successfully with grace slayed a dragon and conquer a kingdom?
The ambiguity of identity in the cyberspace has been of the interest of communication analysts, as not just one could ‘renew’ its identity, one could also steals someone’s else identity and proclaimed it its own (Whittaker, 2002, page 166). The picture below practically summarizes of this suggestion of identity ambiguity:
In one instances, a male psychiatrist once has created a persona named ‘Julie’, a supposedly-disabled woman who has built a wide-support system online and has managed to deceive a lot of people regarding ‘her’ true identity (as cited by Whittaker, 2002, page 166). And identity thefts are not uncommon too; there have been a lot of cases of where the unsuspecting victims do not know that illegal things are done using their name and only realize of it when it is already too late.
Apparently, cyberspace makes everything about identity ‘fragile’ and ‘changeable’. Sexuality, gender and physical appearance are at the ‘mercy’ of the owner as people use cyberspace as a place experimenting with new identities (Bell
It is not rare to see a charming prince in an online game happens to be a very ordinary man who does not stand out at all, or even the prince turns out to be a woman who has a lot of time in her hands. Hence, it is not absurd to say that whatever avatars you see online might as well as be all fakes – ‘never judge a book by its cover’. However, among online community, if one reveals real self to everyone, not just the person receives respect and trust, this may lead to the creation of a close-knit community as others would may do the same and hence, building trust among the members (Fung, 2006, page 136). There is also an instance where a young woman fell in love with her saviour during her usual adventure in an online game and somewhere later, both of these players married in real life, both have accepted each other’s weaknesses that their avatar would have not possessed.
Altogether, while it seems that no online identities are real, some see pass that wall and accept whatever is presented, perhaps believing that whatever values the avatars are having, the owners may also possess the same qualities although hidden.
References:
§ Bell
§ Fung, A. (2006). Bridging Cyberlife and Real Life: A Study of Online Communities in Hong Kong (page 129 – 139). In Silver, D. M. and Adrienne Steve, J. (editors), Critical Cyberculture Studies. New York : New York University
§ Robins, K. (2000). Cyberspace and the World We Live In ( page 77 – 95). In Bell London
§ Whittaker, J. (2002). The Internet: The Basics. Routledge. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=9Dm4kB4wVz8C&lpg=PA163&dq=identities%20in%20cyberculture&pg=PA169#v=onepage&q=identities%20in%20cyberculture&f=false
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