I can no longer live this lie. I invented 'Mike Loader', a college student
struggling to get by on an internship, to hide my real, boring identity.
In actuality, I'm Tom Cruise.

You ain't buying it, I see. Drat.

Seriously, though, the above can help you reduce your level of paranoia
somewhat. If your best friend on the net purports to be a college
student, a retiree, etc, he/she is likely telling the truth. Who'd invent
a everyday person?

Personally, I doubt just about everyone. Although, in my case, there's not
much need. If RpM (to pick on a friend at random) turned out to be a woman
writing under a male... er... acronym in order to be treated with respect
in a male-dominated society, I'd be surprised, but not particularly upset.
The only contact I have with people on the net is verbal. It doesn't
matter to me what the person on the other end is. (As long as they aren't
a serial killer) I've built friendships with the minds of several people
online, and that's... that. I doubt Chris could have been such a
convincing Hitomi if he _weren't_ Hitomi - that is, while the background
is a false, and the body, the personality is real.

My main gripe with the Hitomi Persona is twofold. First, she gave false
cultural opinions and details. I, for one, have never regarded Hitomi with
much liking. I found her revisionism offensive in the extreme, I found her
anti-Christian rants disgusting (replace the word 'christian' with 'jew'
in one, and you have something any hate group would be proud of. I'm not
very religious, but respecting the beliefs of others is something I feel
strongly about), and I found the numerous episodes of false modesty
irritating. *shrug* Sorry, but that's how it is. I actually find Hitomi
more likable with the revalation that most of the above were probably a
pose. But it was a pose that reflected poorly on the Japanese as a whole.
Likewise, giving out cultural information when one is ignorant of the
culture is... well..

The second gripe is that she brought in RL. Had she portrayed herself as
Hitomi, a Japanese writer of fanfics who didn't feel qualified to hand out
cultural information and who didn't want to meet anyone in RL, or have any
relationship aside from that of a fanfiction writer... I doubt the feeling
of betrayal would be as great. After all, what would have changed? Simply
the person's name and sex, and on the net, name and sex mean less than the
end three characters on your email addy. 

But she tried to get Bert and Twister in on an RL venture, and flooded
them with false personal details.

My advice to you all, for what little it may be worth, is to accept given
identities for what they are. That is, until the validity of the identity
becomes important. I suppose that's the thing I'm driving at... Hitomi's
identity wasn't really a problem as long as the truth of the identity
didn't matter.

Although I'm still curious as to who Richard's non-de-plume was. *eyes
Sebastian suspiciously*

- Mike Loader
===/\=====+==================================================================
  /  \    l  "For, look you, there is humour in all things, and the truest
 / () \   l   philosophy is that which teaches us to find it and make the
/      \  l   most of it." - Jack Point, _The Yeomen of the Guard_
--------  l                    mike@thekeep.org
==========+==================================================================
Fnord.