thoughtfulI think everyone online has an aspect of "persona" to them, if only because ideally, on the internet, you have the opportunity to think before you press "submit." Not everyone does, but the option is still there, for all of us. We filter out certain aspects of ourselves: the faces we present to the world are not exactly one-to-one identical to the faces we present in private. I'm a little wittier on the internet, because I never have to deal with l'esprit d'escalier. On the internet, it doesn't matter that I can't pronounce l'esprit d'escalier (my French pronunciation is so bad it's comical).
I swear a little less on the internet, because I have to think about the process of typing out the word. "Shut your fucking face, you fucking fucker" rolls trippingly off the tongue, but it doesn't fall quite so easy from the fingers. I don't usually document how many times I need to pee. And yeah, since I come from the "do not air your dirty laundry in public" school of thought, I can come off as a bit of a perpetual Marilyn Munster when I really tend to flux between being a Marilyn and being a Wednesday. I let my cynicism off the leash sometimes, but I've found that it's more effective when I don't live and breathe in a haze of grumpy.
Also, I really am inappropriately enthusiastic about everything. Soda. Movies. Commercials that I really like. Street pennies. Peeing. I love peeing! I mean, I don't pee on trees or anything, but I really like it when I go into the bathroom feeling uncomfortable, and come out feeling a-okay. Plus it's an excuse to sit and read, and who doesn't love that? People who are around me in the real world are likely to get treated to a constant stream of alternatingly perky and snarlingly homicidal sound bytes. "Gosh, trees are nice, I like trees I WILL DESTROY ALL WHO THWART ME do you think maybe we should go back to Disneyland in October SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG RARRRRRHGHGHGHGH oh hey juice." Most of these things never make it online, because they're fleeting impulses, or because I don't feel like providing an ocean of context to make them make sense.
I guess that's really where internet persona comes in, at least for me: I make more sense online. I have less visible downtime, I'm a little less random, and I'm a little more measured with my swearing. I'm just as perky, and just as cranky, it's just not a twenty-four/seven thing. It's really important to me that I not be artificial online, because I spend so much time interacting with people offline, and I don't want to be reading from a script every time I do a public appearance. (Although that would be hysterical. I should write a "being Seanan at a book signing script," and start tapping people to stand in for me while I go to get myself another soda.) Filtered doesn't mean shallow, and thoughtful doesn't mean fake.
On the balance of things, I think you can tell whether or not you'd like me in person from listening to me online, as long as you remember that there's a whole third dimension offline, and that I can sometimes use that third dimension to run into traffic after red balloons, or produce seemingly random frogs. And I find that pretty cool.
Thoughts?
(*Who will not be named here, you know the drill, and everyone has the right to an opinion.)
June 20 2012, 20:34:01 UTC 5 years ago
Oh really? And here I had read your enthusiasm as being a) high-energy, though sometimes it seems you force yourself to keep going so you don't stop at an inconvenient place, and b) genuinely enjoying a lot of things, and finding them interesting.
I don't find your online personna grating. I'd really like to meet you, but I'm not sure how you'd react to somewhat-random somewhat-stranger at a con offering you a six pack of Diet Dr Pepper and thanking you for the introduction to Shaun and George.
Please keep being you, as you see fit. I like who you present as, but bottom line, it doesn't matter a shed whisker what I like. If you can look in the mirror and be comfortable with who you see there, that's a hell of an achievement that a lot of us never reach. I hope you're there more often than not.
June 20 2012, 22:44:15 UTC 5 years ago
Your online persona makes me laugh and I like reading your stuff.
June 21 2012, 15:54:54 UTC 5 years ago
She was chatting animatedly with another fan as people gathered for the reading (she was a guest of honor at a local con), and when I shyly set the bottle on the desk near her, she - without missing a beat - turned to me with a brilliant smile and said "You, madam, are a goddess who shall be immortalized in story and song forever!", then continued her conversation. And I was not even the first that day to so gift her. As a dear friend would say, "Now there - THAT's a classy dame!" :-)
June 22 2012, 01:30:58 UTC 5 years ago
June 22 2012, 01:30:28 UTC 5 years ago