Online Identity

Introduction

People can change there complete identity and be who ever they want when online, they might change their identity to fit into group of people they feel wouldn’t normally accept them. I’m going to look at the ways in which people want to be perceived and how people become a part of group discussions and chat rooms. Online people can show people what they want them to see, and tell them the things they want them to think about them…

My web address is t19tone@hotmail.com, this probably means nothing to most people, but how I got the name was by having a popular name. I would have been Tom Stone 1578 so I changed the “S” the 19 in the numerical alphabet. I’ve come across some really strange names like “No fear, Admiral baby, C.B Madman and Phil666” these are all completely personal to them, some name more eye catching and creative than others, some names are the persons actual name. C.B madman is what my brother decided to call himself and it stands for Crazy Bastard Madman which is in fact how people know him, he is a bit crazy.

Questions for remembering passwords, these can be passwords for accounts or access to personal web pages. The default options given for questions are all personal questions, like “what’s your mothers maiden name?”

Internet accounts are the kind or information that can’t be made up. It is illegal to give a faults identity when filling in an account page. You only have to fill in the information required, To get an account or register with an online company you need to fill in some personal information specifically your Name, address and normally your debit card number if buying online. this information protected and normally has an accept terms and conditions option to click on, if you choose not to trust people with this personal information you obviously cant purchase or register with company products.

The largest growing form of online identity is the personal web pages. The number of people with their own personal page is rising all the time. Sites like Yahoo, Angelfire and Geocities now offer free personal web page builders. People are then able to place themselves on the Internet and get seen by people world wide. Now this person can create a site that tells lies and creates somebody they are not, they can tell the truth and fill details in correctly. A good example of personal web pages is our blog accounts. We can log on and post stories and images of what ever we want to. Viewers are then able to type in our address and read all about us.

Customised pages on personal web pages, Blogger is an online Publisher where you can publish written work, photos and create links to other web pages, links to research and relevant images. On your blog you can fill in a profile and add images, you can completely customise the appearance of your blog, changing the colours and the layout.
Portfolio of work, people make websites to present there work, one of my favourite online portfolio is www.mypetskeleton.com it’s pages of fine art work, Theres plenty of the more popular ones, like glassworks.

Messages in names, people very often send messages to other people in their names. I’ve seen messages over the MSN and i-tunes names to friends. It’s identities between friends similar to a chat room. Some people announce things there selling and leave a number.

I’ve joined specific groups and chat rooms to find out information on certain things for current projects. I was asking about Java script which is something I didn’t know much about, the people I was asking seemed to be I.T geeks, where as in other chat rooms like this snow boarding one I joined, the people seemed very different. So in each chat room you meet different kinds of people. I was interested in both these subjects, I wouldn’t call myself an extreme sport fanatic or have a great interest in Java script. So with in these chat rooms you develop a stereo type identity.

I never really used to that interested talking on MSN not until I got all my friends addresses. Now I quite often go on and see who’s talking, when I’m board I’ll look at the profiles.
Depending what mood I’m in depends what name I have on MSN. A lot of the people I know on MSN have song lyrics as names, again it depends on the moods, some are depressing names from sad songs and some are happy. I chose to have random hip hop song lyric’s as my name.

Web profiles, I occasionally check out my friends profiles and new friends I meet over MSN. On these profiles you can leave as much or as little information about your self. I’ve tried to fill all the spaces in mine, from my name and age to my favourite words and phrases, so you can have a really details identity or remain anonymous.

Descriptions and Photos, My photo is normal, I don’t like many photo’s of myself, so I picked the clearest one, you wouldn’t guess I was seriously drunk on new year, I did actually change the back ground to plain colour, because the photo was taken in my brothers room and wasn’t that clear. Some people have random picture of there pet or the default images you get with MSN, like footballs.

I saw a strange animation the other day that was making fun of MSN. The story was a 14 year old girl chatting to what appeared to be a old man with stains over his shirt and long finger nails. Obviously the girl didn’t know who she was talking to, she thought it was a Justin Timberlake look a like. The old man even scanned a picture, a magazine cut out of Justin Timberlake and said it was him.
This was a comedy animation but it is a really serious matter or it can be.

Gaming is another way to create an online identity,
You will find people created clans for players to work as a team. You create a name and a character. When playing in game you communicate with other players, so your name is important. If you called yourself Pink Fairy, I am sure people wouldn’t fear you on the game, some people do call them selves stupid names because their taking the Micky. The more serious players call themselves hard sounding names. Gaming identity is all about making a strong first impression that will make people give you respect. When you’re in a team playing game you some times have names that fit the identity of your team, for example if your team was The Gods, your name might be Neptune or Zeus.