Christopher Walken was a victim of an online impersonator, but are fictional fakers such a problem?

As our use of the internet evolves, questions of online and offline identity become more important. Maybe a little mild deception might be fun?

Tuesday night saw the latest meeting of Manchester’s Social Media Cafe. One of the talks was run by Futuresonic festival founder Drew Hemment. Although the talk was supposed to be about the festival (which incidentally includes a rather excellent-looking Social Technologies Summit), it ended up becoming a fascinating group debate about online identity.

In the past people tended to hide their real identities behind an online pseudonym. The real people behind screen names like ‘CrazyGirl82′ or ‘DonkeyMan’ a few years ago would have hated for people to know too much about their true identity. An emerging trend over the past year (perhaps inspired by the ‘real names only’ policy of Facebook) has been for people to be transparent about their identity online.

It’s another example of what I’ve previously called ‘The Naked 21st Century‘ – the inevitable shift to a totally open, much less private world. If we’re using our real names online there’s nothing ‘fake’ to hide behind. As disconcerting as that may sound, it does have its benefits. A ‘real name’ Twitter account, for example, can seem more trustworthy than someone who hides behind an abstract identity.

On the other hand, if real names are the norm then it becomes easier to pretend to be someone else. Twitter is littered with fake celebrity accounts run by people who presumably just like the attention. Funnily enough, it’s been down to the real celebrities on there, like Jonathan Ross and Philip Schofield, to weed out the charlatans thanks to their heaving address books.

While we may be skeptical about celebrity accounts, what about ‘normal people’ online? How do we know someone is real? One woman taking part in the debate on Tuesday astounded me by talking about the lengths she went to in creating a fake online identity for “research purposes” related to her job in PR.

Her fake identity had its own email address, social network accounts, political views. How she got around the problem of needing photos I’m not sure but she claimed her fictional character fooled a lot of people into ‘befriending’ a figment of someone’s imagination.

How would you feel if you discovered that someone you had been talking to online was just a fictional character? Personally, I think I’d be a little upset at first, but in the grander scheme of things does it really matter? When I debate issues with people online it’s just an exchange of ideas – a bit of mental exercise, if you will. In most cases it doesn’t amount to anything, it’s just a debate, no more and no less. It really doesn’t matter whether who I’m talking to is real or not.

So, in most cases people’s online identities are irrelevant. People may feel a little cheated if they discover the truth, but unless the fake identities are used for illegal purposes what’s the harm?

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that creating an alternative identity online might be a fun exercise! I’m tempted to give it a go. Trying to express opinions that are at odds with my own might help me understand other people’s views. Why not try it yourself and let me know how you get on?

[Image Credit: Christopher Walken by David Shankbone]