I am hopelessly old-fashioned. So old-fashioned that even in the whacked-out, surreal world of social media, I still cling to quaint notions that people are who they say they are, especially when they have built an authentic reputation on a site. Of course I know that skulduggery, bullying, duplicity and criminal behaviour abound online, but it’s always a shock when it is revealed. At least it is to me.

Come join the masquerade 

I am not suggesting that people who have more than one identity are guilty of any of those things, but I am taking issue with the argument that always comes up when multiple identities or misrepresentations of “self” are revealed. That argument consists of denying that there are real people behind computer screens who have real feelings about the people they engage with and real reactions to finding out that they’ve been fooled. The argument goes like this: The internet is full of crazies so you’re crazy too if you become emotionally invested or make friends with anyone online. Huh? I am a fool for wanting to connect with another human being through their writing or personality just because I am meeting them virtually? That is to deny basic human nature to be social whatever the context.

A waste of human potential

It’s an insulting attitude to the people to whom it’s directed, but mostly I find it mind-numbingly cynical about the potential of the internet to build connections and effect social change. In essence, it reduces all the time that people spend online to mere posturing and pretending to be something we’re not. There will always be some elements of that on social media––FOMO (fear of missing out), Facebook green envy or Twitter rage red––but that’s not all there is. Not all relationships formed in such an environment are rendered false and meaningless because nobody knows whom anyone really is any more.
I read somewhere a while ago that the “internet is the greatest waste of human potential ever invented.” I don’t want to believe that. But attitudes like the one I’ve just discussed convince me that it may be headed in that direction. Or maybe it’s simply that some human beings prefer to think the worst of people, while the old-fashioned rejects like me want to take people at face value as much as possible. Only time will tell.