Recently I read here on ELR somebody say that we didn’t know a member because that was an online persona.
I have made many friends online, as I think that their online persona reflects their real life persona. I have many friends I have never met, but just online through gaming. I have made many friends online is a Scuba Diving forum. Have planned many dive trips and actually met them. Some as far away as the Philippines. Everyone of these people were just like their online personas, the reason we could be friends.
So is your online persona the real you? Getting my popcorn ready.
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Absolutely this is me! Give me your address. I’ll stop by and have lunch!
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I retired from the 12th precinct in the early 1980’s but otherwise, I’m doing great!
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for me the answer is yes , im not here to be cool , so i am who i am , i will say i try to react in different ways than i do in " real life " because the lack of emotions through typing , when i speak i am typically animated as far as my hands moving and facial expressions ( salesperson ) lol besides my name here everything else is real btw my name is actually Olin
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Typically I have found the online persona to be who a person really is…
Reason being in reality some people don’t really express their feelings as they should.
Online your free to express your self since odds are you never will met who your talking to… then if by chance if you meet these people in real life . They already know the real you. So your free to be yourself.
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Many years ago I was on a TFC clan. We had members throughout the US and Canada. One year we had a get together in Houston for 4 days and all stayed at one member’s house. Everyone was just as they were online. After spending countless hours gaming and in IIRC we all had a real strong sense of who everyone was and none failed to live up to that.
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Obviously I am not the reincarnation of a deceased WWF Heavy Weight Champion.
So this is not real life for me, it’s a DIYing Forum.
I am way more than what exists here 
️
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What i share here is true to who i am in real life.
WAIT, I just lied…im not a grove of trees…but i sure do like them 
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I have diferent reactions when I speak to my wife, diferent when I speak to my child, diferent when I speak to an unknown person, propable diferent when I speak to someone online, but it is not a diferent persona all this together it is just me.
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My view is… it doesn’t really matter. Unless you meet with someone in person and spend a lot of time with them, you will never know who they really are.
I have participated in several forums and a lot of online gaming. We would have annual meet ups from a fishing forum and most were the sincere people you saw online, some were not even close.
A few online game remembrances; One guy said he had heart cancer and his younger brother took over his accounts.His brother played exactly like him and all his words and phrases were exactly the same. After a few months the original guy was back and his younger brother had died in a car accident. We knew where he was from because of his IP address. We looked through all the local news and there were no teens killed in car accidents.
Another guy told a woman he had six months to live. She felt sorry for him and he manipulated her into doing all the hard work for him. He was abusive and a jerk. After 1 1/2 years he was still kicking and I and other friends finally convinced her to ditch him.
So to me it doesn’t really matter who you are here, there is no way to prove it. I only care if you are nice and respectful, hopefully funny and provide good information and advice.
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It’s really me, alright! Only, my name is Brian, not Plunderdrum! Haha! I am a drummer, though. And, Plunder is a ridiculous musical performance group that only lives in my head right now. It’s named after a fictional character I created; a gigantic, lonely Blue Whale who spots an equally over-sized African Bush Elephant near the coast when she comes up for a quick sip of air. Mesmerized, she dreams of going to land and singing whale-song in duet with the handsome elephant brairing its trumpet trunk in concert. This, of course, never materializes, but the dreams are pretty epic.
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A general answer would be yes, most people are their true selves online. Over the years, even back in the BBS days, I’ve seen some extraordinary situations where this would not seem to be the case but in fact it was even more true.
One of the first online friends I met IRL was a wildly irreverent, roguish charmer who would flirt equally with men and women alike. When we started talking about meeting, he prepared me for the reality that he was a paraplegic with limited use of his arms. Although his expressiveness in real life was very subdued, his online persona allowed him the freedom to be his true self.
Another young lady I knew online was a chatty, sassy clever writer who didn’t take any bullshit from anyone and would publicly humiliate any of the pervy men/boys who would harass her. Getting to know her better and through her FB I learned that she was on the autism spectrum and barely verbal at all until she was a teenager and started interacting online.
A few other people I’ve known had family or professional situations where they had to keep their online activities separate for what ever reason. In all these cases, their online personas were always a genuine aspects of their true selves that they weren’t able to fully or freely express in real life. Then again, some of my real life friends who are outgoing and boisterous tend to just lurk around online.
The scariest situation is getting to know someone online and missing all the little red flags only to find out they are bat shit crazy IRL. I’ve seen that happen too but fortunately that’s pretty rare.
If you’re wondering about me in particular, I’m probably nicer on line in some ways because I have to think about what I’m saying before I click “send” 
The shit heads I can’t ignore IRL know perfectly well what a cantankerous bitch I can be but here, I can simplify my life by ignoring people.
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Hello, my name is Tim and I’m a happy married 43 year old. The symbol I use stands for homesteading. Ofcourse here in Belgium “homesteading” doesn’t exist. What I understand about it or the way I interpret it, is to be self reliant. As such I have an eclectic arsenal of hobbies like leatherwork, blacksmithing, woodworking,…
One day I hope to become fully self reliant, but at the moment I’m still not there yet. The way I am here or in any other “online place” is just the way I am in real life. I’ve had bad health problems in the past and learned that life is too short to be negative. In my opinion the world is full of liars and profiteers and I realised that change starts with yourself so I try to be a nice guy and focus on the beauty of life and nature. Hugs all around 
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I think the original question could be "online persona vs off-line persona. ELR is real life. We’re all here learning, giving and receiving advice, trading tips and recipes that are quite real. Maybe if this were a D&D gaming forum I’d see the reason to clarify online vs real, but most people here are just who they are, sharing a common goal in real life. Just thoughts. Nice post!
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It has made me think a bit more on this. I believe in a community where there is a common interest like here in ELR, that people tend to be more their true self. Unlike in let’s say a political community, where views are very different and people express themselves quite different, more boldly and aggressive.
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Thank you for bringing this up. I too have had online friends that had various disabilities. The online world can be a true blessing for them to interact with people and possibly discover talents they might never have known otherwise.
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I hope that many of the traits I try to demonstrate (generally laid back, generally respectfull and caring for example) are displayed here. Even my occasional calm rant or sarcastic moments are true to the course and how I am in real life. Beyond that I would like to think there is more to me in real life and strive to be a better person.
Oh and my real name is Kevin. J/k
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Yes, in real life I am also a dick.
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I’ve been stewing on that, since it occured, and I couldn’t disagree more. Is it possible someone’s online personality could be different than their RL personality ?? Sure, anything’s possible, but just because you know someone online, or interact with them that way, doesn’t make it NOT real. When I hear statements about “fake” or “imaginary”, or “not real”, regarding relationships, specifically because they are “online”, it’s just insulting, and shows a lack of comprehension if you ask me.
Met a lot of great people here on ELR, some of which I’ve met in person. Had GREAT, ROLLING conversations about mixing, and BBQ’ing, and every OTHER damned thing that you would converse with friends about. Very good times. Doesn’t make ANYTHING not real, less real, or unimportant. I’ve donated to a lot of people here on ELR, friends of ELR members who were having problems, even solicited donations for a friend of mine, who was in danger of loosing his house, and ELR members helped out. Was that NOT real ?? I think not. I’ve sent members devices, juices, and more, and I’ve never met them, probably never will. Doesn’t make it not real.
Except for a VERY select few, I keep total separation between OL and RL, which isn’t a bad idea, with the times that we live in. Doesn’t mean I’m different OL as opposed to RL, I’m not, and I’m sure many/most of you are not as well. Real name vs. Screen name, of course, you don’t want to blab out all of your personal information LOL, but, that doesn’t make it any less real.
I think that people who just don’t GET what we do here, and on countless other sites, forums, groups, just don’t get it. They probably drum up the image of some dirty old man acting as if he was a 14 year old girl or some such crap.
It IS real boys and girls, and just because I may never drive up to @daven’s house, pound on the door, doesn’t mean what we’re doing here is any less real than any OTHER thing we might do. It’s real, and changing your screen name from your real name, doesn’t change anything. You can be friends, even if you’ve never met.
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