online identities

This is going to be so difficult to write.

Damn tootin'. Because you're not writing it. I am.

Who the hell are you?

I'm you.

No, I'm me. You're you. WHO ARE YOU?

I'm WolfDaddy.

Oh please. You're just a name, an identity, a screen I hide behind while I'm online. You're, at the most, "WolfDaddy".

Riiiiiiiight. Permit me to tell you that you're full of shit. I am a subset of who you are. How can I not be you?

Because you're full of shit. Everything I've ever written in your name are things written as an exercise in the theory that all writers lie. You're an amalgam, a repression, a bit of fancy, and a bit of fantasy, and far from the person that I really am.

I guess that makes it easy for you, but there's no truth in it.

How fascinating. I've never been contradicted by a subset before. Please, continue. But be careful, I control you.

I laugh at you sir, I laugh heartily and long. You control me? What I am, you have made me, but what I've done you cannot take back. You can't undo me. Even if you pull an Asamoth. You can kill me, but you cannot unmake me.

b_o_leary has become bol
and ThePope becomes Professor Pi
which is real, and who can tell
which is real, and who is the lie??

Nice.

That wasn't me.

Well it wasn't me, either.

Sorry, I'm not much of a poet. But I try.

You're a distraction. So, "WolfDaddy" you are nothing more than my own personal Tyler Durden. I let you say things that I'd not choose to say out loud because one doesn't say things like that in polite company.

The company you keep is the person you are. A lady's hands proclaim her habits. Maybe you wouldn't need me if you weren't so afraid. And if I'm Tyler, you're no more real than Marla or The Narrator. You're every bit a facet of a fragmented personality as am I. The only true difference between us is the fact that you're made of meat, living in slowtime, whereas I dance in a swirl of electrons. In a way, I'm better than you. I'm more permanent, yet undefined. You are ... who you are. Who I am, is up to them. Not you.

This is all futile. You are nothing more than an abstract. Proof that the Internet promotes more effective communication while at the same time fragmenting us all. You are not what I want you to be, you are not who I'd hoped you to be. You are nothing.

Then kill him.
As surely as b_o_leary and ThePope are deaddeaddeadmurderedmurderedmurdered, you can kill him.

You run around with some fuckin' creepy fragments, you know that? Maybe that's why you don't have the balls to go to a get-together. Maybe that's why when you meet someone that only knows you through your writing they're invariably disappointed. Maybe that's why you need us.

Us? Who's this "us"?

me

And me.

              and                         me

   here!       me       too         and 
me                           ME ME ME
you             never write               with 
me                   in your head    me
too!

*chuckle*

I've killed one of you before, I can do it again.
It will mean nothing to me.

How selfish. How brutal. I'm glad I'm me, and not you. Murderer. And you really think you're the dominant one, eh? You're disgusting. You gave me life, and you released me into this void, and the minute someone learned anything from me, or saved a part of me to their own hard drive, I became untouchable and alive in my own right. I cannot be harmed now ... not even by you.

But I don't like this. I want to pull it together, not break it apart.

Too late, too late toolatetoolatetoolate

This isn't right. This is wrong. How many others are out there, pouring our facets into the 'net? How many of us become our online identities? What is real? Who me be? How will this affect us all? What do I do now.

Just watch the magic.

ABRACADBRA!

I'm afraid. What have I done? How much of me have I spun out of whole cloth and foisted upon innocence? Why can't I pull it all back into myself?

Heh heh. You can't. You shouldn't. Something's coming. You were a part of it. You can still be a part of it. Weather the changes as social, economic, territorial, political, and religious boundaries fall all around your ears. It's all right here. And over there. It's in your stories and in your lies. It's in the truth, it's in you. Even if you say it as me. All the lies are true. All the truths are lies.

Who are you?

Who are you?

Who are you?

It doesn't matter anymore.

I and some of the other editors very recently found out that one of the noders here at E2 literally played dead, reportedly to throw a harrassing stalker off his trail. The original announcement of the noder's death was met with varying degrees of sadness and dismay. When that death was revealed to be a ruse, some folks were downright outraged. Of the whole event, bones wisely reminded us that we can't really know our fellow noders unless we have the opportunity to know them off the Web.

We are all acting out personas here, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Some people pretend to be what they know they are not: the meek strap on a warrior's blade and lionskin, the inhibited slip on their fishnets and black satin, and the wise don the fool's cap and prance around the court. Some people deceive out of malicious delight; others for the sole joy of living an existence, however single-dimensional, that real life has denied them.

But some people, like myself, try to present ourselves as accurately as we know how.

The trouble is, the Lucy any of you perceive here is not the same Lucy you'll perceive in real life, no matter how much I'd like the two women to be one in the same.

At best, we can't glimpse much more than 20% of a person's "true" self in a venue like this, even when they're being perfectly honest about themselves. E2, of course, favors the writers. Those who can express themselves eloquently on paper come off well here, provided they don't have a taste for trolling or flaming. But people who are less able writers come off as less intelligent, less interesting, than they might be in person.

And you can't make eye contact, can't hear the inflections in a person's voice, can't watch them blush, can't see them wince or grin. You can't see that the silver-penned academic has a greasy leer, or that the stumbling newbie has a beautiful smile and gift for song.

Even the rawest, most immediate work here at E2 has been filtered through the veil of an individual's own perceptions. It's planned, captured. Immediacy in text is always a trick of the tale.

So, weep for our tragedies. Celebrate our successes. Rage against our pettiness and bad behavior.

But take us all with a grain or two of salt.

Because we are scared and confused and weak and strong and brave and suave and hesitant and foolish. None of us are angels, and none devils, but there's still real blood in the ink we write with.