Professor Whalen brought this up in passing during our second to last class. He said we all need aliases from time to time. At first that sounded deeply paranoid, but then I realized how many times a day I use an alias especially around computers. Whenever I login to Amazon or ebay I am something other than who I am. I am my screen name and online whenever I go on to eaglenet.
I believe that for every alias you use a different persona is assumed. For the school account I am the beginning letter of my name and my last name and whenever I am lsouth, I try to represent myself in an academic manner. When I am just using a screen name in a chat sight I am who ever I want to be in that moment. I recently have been commenting in a news blog from Spain and they know me as SurE. When I am this screen name I am as loud spoken and very politically minded. In non-virtual setting and when I am not assuming this Alias, I tend to think before I speak. I am mostly quiet unless I feel confident in my response. While I am this character I don’t have to think my answers through I can just answer for the sake of discussion.
I am sure that’s how internet trolling starts and works. The person is able to shed their reality through their alias and become whoever they want. They are able to let out their frustrations and be obnoxiously petty on another plane. It’s also interesting how people pick alias; they have to be something that the persons sees in themselves or something that they are familiar with. For example I always pick something with Sur in it not because my name in English is South but because I lived in South America for more years than in North. That culture is something I identify more than this one. Therefore that’s the persona I want to have on the virtual plane.
I was reading about Julian Assange on Wikipedia and they said that is hacking alias was Mendax which to him meant “nobly untruthful.” I feel like this is his basically his mission statement to life. He breaks into systems and secure areas in deceptive ways to find the truth. He believes himself as a Robin hood type figure only for knowledge. His alias feeds his motive for his hacking and Wiki leak site.
I just think it’s very interesting how a name or alias that you chose for your self affects the way you present yourself on a virtual plane. Also the fact that this virtual reality encourages you and if in some site prompts you to provide an alias/screen name is also very telling and interesting.
