Confusion of aliases and 3D is a story in progress...
as the Internet is so new. I've tried to think of analogies. I took dancing lessons at a studio when I was very young, and I learned that it was the norm for all teachers to go by aliases, like the movie stars. Moreover, fraternization with customers outside the studio was grounds for dismissal. I believe that was true also of the many girls who served as dance partners for soldiers in the USO's during WW II. Those were instances of trying to prevent a sort of artificial relationship from spilling over into "real life."
Wherever people mingle, however, the lines will eventually become blurred for some. It seems that the chatline aliases may have a life of many years, which really can invest a person in being "Y", and make Y defensive and protective of the carefully nurtured online persona. It may become like "Nurse Betty," where the actor playing a doctor in a long running soap-opera becomes more like his character ... or vice-versa. And for some chatliners, as their cyber friendships become older and deeper, the chatline may become more the real world than the 3D one beyond the door.
It's pretty complicated stuff.
BTW, one of the familiar aliases here once said to my alias, "Remember, I know how to serve papers on you." I found that really weird. It made me envision a cyber court somewhere, where the two aliases would meet with cyber lawyers there to represent them before a cyber judge. But I guess the other poster was envisioning a real courtroom with our real selves would meet in 3-D.
If the line of demarcation blurs much further, and threatens to invade our 3-D lives, some of us may just choose to have our alias become sick and die.
Then we can sit back and see what the other aliases have to say about us after we're gone.
EDIT: As an added plus, this could also be my one and only shot at eventually being Resurrected. |
