Identity play.

This isn’t to suggest that ‘catfishing,’ (or even role-playing outside of an explicitly defined environment) didn’t exist before social media. Tales of catfishing, before we even had that name for it, have been frequently evoked since the dawn of the digital community: the sexual predator hiding behind the mask of a little girl or young man; the fa... See more

It was considered part and parcel of the Internet, and more threatening situations were just anomalies to be aware of in an environment that generally accepted and encouraged this type of behavior. In early texts about the Internet, people would speak of their digital alter egos openly, “Online, I’m a 6’4” German man, and in real life, I’m….”Often ... See more

This foreclosure on play by tying our digital expressions to our real selves has done more than just make roleplaying feel like abnormal or unusual behavior. I think it works in the opposite direction, too. For people who do still roleplay, an impulse grows to blur the line between game-life and real-life. The character ceases to be a character, an... See more