Does Having an Online Existence Ever Freak You Out?

[FourthBase]

Existentially?

(This goes especially for the regulars.)

[AlicetheKurious]

Yes. But then I think, "Alice" really is me, though only the aspects that can be expressed in words on a screen. Obviously, this entails some major limitations, but these are more than balanced by the freedom from other limitations.

It's an opportunity to communicate mind-to-mind, on a level playing field, which is very cool.

[Penguin]

I see my online alter egos as roleplaying characters. Sure its me alright, but I may suspend disbelief for the purpose of playing with ideas and theories. And in a sense, there is no real me - its all mirrors, especially on the internet. You might recognize me in real life, or you might not

As to being freaked out? I dont think so. Its just like cyberpunk, or quite. I imagined all this stuff years before it realized in this "real" world. Hard core fixers, dark dealings with megacorporations, private merc armies securing resources in poor shithole countries, huge neonlit cities, environmental devastation, pervasive internet - with some people jacked on 24/7 via neural links - cybernetic diseases when man and machine meld and the psyche fragments, metallic perversions and fetishes, blood and gun metal.

Interesting times sure.

[Seamus OBlimey]

It did feel a bit strange when people started noticing me. I prefer to keep a low profile but sometimes I just can't help myself.

As for Seamus, he is me (shamelessly sometimes tho often embarassed) and however many names he dreams up he's still me.

I have to live with that.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Same seamus, (if that really is you).

I try to post as if I am at the pub, or in a loungeroom with a bunch of people I know talking about stuff. IE I try to be as much the same as I can.

[Hammer of Los]

I don't think I understand the question.

But I don't, as a rule, freak out.

And I don't adopt a fake persona. I just don't want to be sued/surveilled/blacklisted for what I write and think.

I do wonder what other people make of me though, based on my online communications. I suspect, whether flattering or otherwise, that what they make of me is pretty accurate to what I actually am.

[FourthBase]

I don't wear any kind of online mask, either.
This is exactly who am I in real life.
(I am, in fact, an asshole.)

But that leads to the problem: Presuming that most here are not adopting a fake persona, how is this online existence any less real than the bunch of us living in the same apartment complex and speculating about the most taboo subjects every day in the common room? There's a host of other philosophical shit involved in this online world, too, like...holy fucking shit only 200 years ago when people were emotionally and intellectually identical to us, this existence of ours today would have been unimaginably weird. Nevermind 2000 years ago. 20,000 years ago. By "freak out", I mean something casual like a short "whoa" or a case of existential shudders while sitting in your computer chair, not some kind of clinically-insane freakout.

[OP ED]

Not really, but I'm not very existentialist. Way I see it, I'm still sitting in a cold room filled with smoke whining about the same things. Only my eyes hurt more.

[Joe Hillshoist]

As long as the smokes from those superbuds you keep raving about its all good.

[OP ED]

heh. when I can find them.

sometimes you take what you can get. still beats ohio.

[Joe Hillshoist]

[OP ED]

Like that, only without the trippy yellow glow.