I am the Octopus?? coo coo ca choo

I read a fascinating article last night about how humans, thanks to technology, are catching up to Cephalopods in how they can transform to make themselves stand out or blend in, depending on the situation. As I read the article talking about creating online personalities different from our real life, I thought of this project, and why we would want to do that. Many feel persecuted for how they are in the social standings. The Internet is far more forgiving of social deviants. You can find websites dedicated to every sexual fetish, lifestyle, clothing fashion, or hatred. We can let ourselves out thanks to technology because theres no intimate contact, but we must conceal our identity because we know the RL world will find us and then our "dirty little secret" is let out of the bag. This really exposes, on a basic level, our shame. The level of vanity that went into creating the blogs was really amazing. Why were all of us so ashamed to admit who we are on here? What are we afraid of? I'm not saying post your name and address on the net for everyone to find. But I'm curious about the psychology behind why we all had to come up with witty names for our blogs, why we wanted to hide, but at the same time, many felt so overwelmed with the sudden ability to freely express themselves on the Internet, they locked up in a "freedom panic". Are my fellow co-workers afraid of ridicule for not knowing about youtube or flickr? Are they afraid of us finding out that they aren't as strong in technology as others think? Are they hiding a lack of writing skill? I will be honest and tell you why I went semi-anonymous. I have a studder from OCD. I get stuck pronouncing certain words and will repeat myself due some some subconcious pleasure received from the phrase I said. Typing in a blog allows me to avoid the vanity of this. I also wanted to remain secretive to avoid being nagged for help without someone actually trying first. Though for those reading my blog know who I am and can of course ask me for help. I don't mind helping, I really like to help actually. But, thing is, when I worked for tech support, people would never try to fix something themselves, just it doesn't work I need to get help and make someone else do it for me. I personally feel thats no way to go through life. Anyways, back on topic.

The Internet, and blogging, and online communities like MMO's have given people a chance to live how they want to. People can be homosexual, they can hate people with curly hair, or have a fetish for long toe nails. The Internet allows us be what we want. Theres no physical contraints unless you tell the truth and post an actual picture of yourself. We must be careful with a place where we can make up the truth. Take wikipedia.com for example. Its an online encyclopedia where anyone can publish information on anything. What you put there doesn't even need to be factual, but there is some integrety and people do monitor it and will take down fake postings but they too are members of the site and contribute.

I'm not going to bash the Internet for having this ability, I'm not going to be closedminded about it. I will say we all must be careful of what we present ourself as on the Internet, we have the ability to completely prepare and present ourselves free of what nature has given us. But, just in real life, what we do now affects us later. This power is great and awesome.
This video really gives a humorous look at this power going horribly wrong. Warning it has course language, freedom of speech is HUGE on the Internet.


I really hope we all can enjoy living our double lives! Peace to everyone.