h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many of us have stepped into the NooHooToo, dragging our various on-screen personas with us. How many do you have tucked away? Take a moment to do an inventory. Where are they all located? Did all of them make the transfer safely? Which ones will you use in the near future? And here comes the most salient question I have for you on this topic: Why do You care?

I have a few ideas about it. Tell me if I'm wrong, or if you have different / additional reasons why these imaginary characters hold some intrinsic value to you.

These are my observations:
In essence, using a persona is acting. It's like walking onto a stage and performing improve with a set of guidelines. It's doing ad-lib for the crowd, using the cues and "straight lines" someone else feeds you, intentionally or inadvertently. It's role-playing. It's similar to character generation for an AD&D game, then speaking according to the parameters you've set for the character and responding to events in the environment.

Some folks use their on-line persona as a natural extension of who they are in real life. It simply gives them a "face" for others to get to know them as they are, just like directly developing a friendship with a neighbor or someone you meet on the street. For folks who do this, you typically find they are genuine and straightforward, the kind of person who doesn't often indulge in make-believe because they feel interrelations should all be "above board." That's not a fault or short-coming; it's the way they prefer to handle things. Truthfully, no smokescreens, able to make good valid decisions because there's no double entendre or second-guessing motives.

Conversely, using an on-line persona is like slipping on a costume for Halloween. Who among us hasn't thrilled at doing so in real life and then attempting to act accordingly? We're born into this life and we "play the hand we're dealt," but with a costume on we have the opportunity to change our station in life, the way people perceive us as a first impression, and we can experiment with a different mind-set in how we behave. Using a persona allows us to invoke Change.

With the façade of a persona, we can have a degree of anonymity. It can give us the opportunity to voice our opinions in a way we might not otherwise deem appropriate. It can provide a "buffer zone" when an on-line persona develops a reputation for responding in a certain way on particular topics, because it's not the person posting who is blunt, brash, or abrasive—it's his alter ego. Some people see it as a way to avoid the responsibility of what they say, by blaming their on-screen character for the breach of netiquette. This can be amusing if done with humor and a sense of self-deprecation; in contrast, it can grate on the nerves if it's merely an excuse to act deliberately rude to other people.

No matter why you use an on-line persona, the name (and the way you interact while assuming the persona) must have had an origin. Where did yours come from? Usually, it's a series of events that cause us to connect concepts and generate a new idea. It doesn't matter if the concepts are closely related or completely askew from one another; the fact remains the ideas came together in such a way you said, "Aha! That would make a really good name for me to go by while on-line!" What's your story? What bit of kismet, happenstance, or fate brought out the inner moniker we see on-line now? I'll show you mine if you show me yours…

Meet B4 and "his" alter egos: F19585?thread=8282573

This is kind of long and convoluted, so bear with me.

I was finishing my final tour in the military, at Keflavik NAS in Iceland, and one of the guys in my department was an avid James Cameron fan. He just couldn’t stop talking about all the work the man had put into his movie, Titanic. The kid was also half my age and shared a whole bunch of information about the new technology (at that time) of Blu-ray discs. He was so jazzed that the whole movie, Titanic, could fit on one Blu-ray, as opposed to having to spread it across several DVDs.

He got me so spun up on the ideas, I decided to do a little research on the Titanic. During the course of my searches, I stumbled upon an odd little site purporting to be dedicated to the Starship Titanic. The site was laid out like an on-line web presence for a real company building the most amazing and well-appointed luxury cruise liner to ever sail the stars. [http://www.starlight...i-bin/front.cgi] It later became this [http://www.starshiptitanic.com/ ] and shortly afterward turned into a PC game, and later still, a book written by the original conceiver, Douglas Adams, and his close friend Terry Jones, from Monty Python fame.

So, I did a look-up of Douglas Adams, because I’d read his books and listened to the audio adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when I was a might younger. Lo and behold!—there was an H2G2 website out there, with lots of bulletin board postings and forums, based on the Guide from DNA’s novels. The main idea was to put the compendium of all human information into the capable writing and editorial hands of the actual humans to whom all this information pertained. In other words, anyone who had an area of experience or expertise could submit an article to the Guide, it would be read, edited, and finally posted as an integral part of an ever-expanding tome of encyclopedic knowledge.

There were also the free-form forums for discussion of all manner of topics. One I blundered into had several ladies discussing the merits and drool-worthiness of the different character actors for the HHGG series. Several agreed the brilliantly blue-eyed David Dixon was the quintessential Ford Prefect in the BBC television series. Having light steely-blue eyes myself, I thought it a good springboard to register myself on H2G2 with a name commensurate with the whole milieu. So, after a bit of tinkering and finding a particularly alliterative combination, I signed on as Blue-Eyed BiPedal BookWorm from Betelgeuse Beta, in honor of the Ford Prefect character.

In due course, I found my way to one of the more prolific and long-standing forums on the site, Lil’s Atelier, a haven of good conversation and good netiquette. The regulars there, as in many other such bulletin board forums had a tendency to shorten the names of those they responded to, for ease of typing and acknowledgement. My moniker very shortly became B5 so it was a snap to know when I was personally addressed. That was okay, but at some point, my punny side kicked in and I recognized an opportunity for an extra shot of humor, as well as a running gag. I dropped the “Beta” from my on-screen name and changed my visible moniker to Blue-Eyed BiPedal BookWorm from Betelgeuse (aka B4[insertpunhere]). Thereafter, I always ended every posting with B4 and a witty crammed-together phrase dealing with the topic I’d just written. [see below] Clever, huh?

B4thefloodgatesopen&everyonetellstheirowntale

It's like walking onto a stage and performing XXXimproveXXX-->improv (as in improvisation) with a set of guidelines.

I think my spell-checker flagged it as wrong and I accepted its suggestion to correct it.

B4isiftthroughALLthenextJournalEntries4misspellings

When I first joined h2g2 I thought it would be strictly a role play site. I was surprised to meet a lot of people who were pretty much their on screen personas. It was hard deciding how honest to be about myself. Hyp is pretty much me, but all of my alter-egos are pure fun.

Hyp,
You saw much the same as I did when I first stumbled in here. I saw blog posting gone wild, role-playing in bulletin board time, a weekly newspaper, and--wait a minute, this is serious stuff!--Articles written by Researchers on all manner of life's details. THAT's when I decided to stick around. Sure, the "dressing up in a persona and acting a part" is absolutely fun, right up my alley, and suits my never-serious demeanor; but the opportunity to contribute to an ever-expanding compendium of all human knowledge makes me proud to be part of this community.

B4ifindsomelocalhistorytoshare

I don't really have a persona but I might just get myself one. Oh the things I could say and do.

I'm afraid that I am just what I appear to be ... how disappointing is that?

Lovin' your work btw.