Why are our online identities so different from the real ones

Have you ever wondered why Big Boss is one of the most popular reality shows on television, making people sit and glued to their television sets? Or have you ever thought why is Halloween gaining so much popularity in India over the years? 

The answers to both of these questions are the same. We love the thrill of disguise and the act of unveiling that disguise through its layers. 

In the case of Big Boss, we enjoy watching personalities without any of their reel character and yet there is an iota of disguise in their behavior, which we try to unravel. Halloween is the exact opposite of that, where one goes to a party in a disguise to present oneself as something that one is not. 

The reason spy films give an adrenaline rush to viewers because the detective is a secret agent, who often catches criminals while disguising himself as someone else. 

If given a chance, people would love to live such an existence where they can be what they aren’t in reality. The online world gives that opportunity. This is the kind of thrill people get to live daily when their online identities are completely different from their real selves. An online identity is like a Halloween mask, allowing one to live with a completely different identify from one’s real self. 

Social recluses become popular characters on Twitter – sort of mini celebrities, ugly looking men become Hrithik Roshan in their display pictures, women become men, fat girls tweet like Katrina Kaif, talking about their admirer and people who would never dare to even oppose anyone’s views become trolls abusing celebrities and the Government openly. All of this transition happens when people move from the real world to the digital world. 

The question that comes to mind is that why a sane and normal person would do something like this. One can understand criminal or psycho minds doing something like this but why people like you and me? 

One of the big reasons for that is that people believe that if you are online, you have become invincible. No one can find you or touch you. There is an immense sense of power, which makes one believe that whatever they say or post is perfectly fine as no one can do anything to them. Though, even this reality is changing, as was witnessed in the arrests of two girls who had posted some statements on Facebook. 

But not all the people online are like this. There are a few other kinds as well who lurk there in the digital realm. 

There are those who are like an open book, whose every move in life is shared with the online world, irrespective of whether they know people on the other side or not. They talk about their mood, what they ate, where they are holidaying, who they are seeing, what are their views on the cricket match and anything and everything else in between as well. For these people, online world is a security blanket but in a different way than the way it is for the kinds explained above. 

Insecure people in real lives have online identities that defy their insecurity and showcase them as confident individuals. They tweet and post content at regular intervals and every like, comment or retweet that they garner acts as a confidence booster for them. These are also the people who will try to give a point of view on every topic just to be seen as cool. 

On the other side of this set of people are cynics in real lives who like every post, every picture and project themselves as people who appreciate good content. Talk to them in the offline world and spitting fire is second nature to them. 

Let me now conclude with something provocative but yet worth thinking. Try and analyze all these different kind of people a little more and you will realize that there is a bit of us in each one of them. We have also been one of these at different points of time, so all these different kind of online people are nothing but mirrors of our real selves at different points of life, despite the fact that we tend to have online identities that are different from our real identity.