Musing about Identity online - in which I talk about people as cartoon figures, but only at the end

[aldersprig]

This is going to be a bit disjointed, apologies in advance.

I was thinking about identity online this morning (In part because a friend posted a comment which made me think their account had been hijacked).

We rely so much on that little icon to tell us who's who - or the name at the top of the chat window. And, while I could probably imitate with some success the typing voices of my top 5 online friends, there is still a matter of trust - that when I'm talking in the comments to, say, Kelkyag, that it is actually the same person every time.

I get ~freaked out~ when I find out someone is talking to me on someone else's account. It's like... they put on a Friend One suit. At first, Friend One is just acting a bit strangely. Then, Friend One says something out of character, and by this point I'm starting to panic. Then Friend One says Ah ha ha ha no, this is Friend Two (Or Friend Ones's Girlfriend)...

...and I get furious.

But *cough* that could just be me.

How do you deal with identity when your "mental image" of the person comes from a cartoon icon?

(Speaking of which, I've MET @inventrix in person, & I still picture her as her icon (not @capriox, though :-P).)

Comments

[inventrix]

Hmmm. I don't have quite that much of a straight up link between text and person-typing-text so I don't get furious. I would be very indignant in that situation that they hadn't announced it first because that's effectively impersonation which is lying and you know how I feel about that sort of thing.

If someone did announce "hey this is soandso not suchandsuch I'm hijacking their account for a minute", which I have done, I do not mind but in some situations it feels kind of weird. Like, on IRC it didn't bother me much because I identified people more by typing "accent" than their nick, but on, say, Gaia Online where I identified people more strongly by their visual avatar, someone using someone else's account definitely had a feeling of disconnect.

Twitter is somewhere between, I think.

(I don't exactly "deal" with identity of other people, it's just a mental box of associations anyway.)

[aldersprig]

With announcement first, it feels weird, but acceptable.

When y'all do the twitter icon switch thing I sort of bear it.

[inventrix]

Oh dude, dude okay so yes that is an excellent example of what I mean about not "dealing" with other people's identity. Other people swapping around each other's icons, it's eye-rolling and a little confusing but I don't really care.

Other people taking MY icon and mimicking MY account makes me intensely uncomfortable. No one has ever taken me seriously when I yell at them about it so I just "play" along until they get tired of it so at least I have a different icon to identify myself.

[aldersprig]

IN teresting.

Nobody's every taken my icon, so I don't know how I'd feel about it.

I talk differently to everyone, so it's weird to try to balance that when I don't know who I'm talking to.

[inventrix]

You have so many icons on twitter anyway ;P

I think Sam-from-Scotland still associates me with Edward Elric, which is the icon I had for a while when we first started talking on twitter.

[aldersprig]

Just 'cause I have 8,000 accounts - you have a different icon for each account too, don'tcha?

[inventrix]

Yeah but I only really use the two >.>

[aldersprig]

Fair. While I regularly - daily - use at least three.

[inventrix]

Speaking of fictionalized identities and such, apparently my half-conscious brain has difficulty differentiating between gender-swapped Cya and gender-swapped Lyn. >.>

[aldersprig]

Hrrrrm.

Interesting (also on some level makes sense).

Raaaambling

[anke]

I've had people post from someone else's account in IRC when one of my friends was visiting another. I think once or twice one's girlfriend showed up using the familiar nick.
The first just confuses me until someone tells me what's going on, or I figure it out, but I don't mind so much because I know both people involved (and on a comparable level of closeness). The second makes me uncomfortable, because here I am thinking the person in the room with me is a close friend, when they're a stranger.

I don't mind icons as identity. That's why for myself I use pretty much only one icon on LJ and Dreamwidth, and use the same one on all sites where there are avatars, and I hardly ever change it. (*checks art files* This swirly one turned 4 years old last month.)

I have trouble tracking who posts what on my friendslists among the people who have a large collection of icons and switch them around a lot (not so much in your case, because you post a lot, so I see your icons often, and I tend to be able to follow the logic of your choices. Or the icons kinda work like a common layout for a series of books, in the case of fiction. Huh. Your journal is more of a fiction channel than a personal blog, compared to most others I follow, come to think of it.)

When Todd's icon day icons were even more common than now, I kept getting confused, thinking two different people with relatively basic humanoid portraits, or images of the same species of critter, in the same style were the same person.
Right now on Twitter I keep thinking your posts from the AlderLynKitty account come from Inventrix.

Oh, and with people I don't know already, if the avatar's a non-androgynouslooking person, I tend to assume that the person behind the avatar is the same gender as the the person IN the avatar, which leads to confusion with fandom-based avatars sometimes...

Also in case you're curious why I'm using an abstract swirly as my icon, years ago I had a cartoony drawing of myself as my portrait taggged on an online gallery. I think it was this one. I met a new person in a chat attached to that website, usually full of normal/nice people, so we exchanged gallery links. He asked if I had reddish hair, I said no, he said it looked kinda reddish, I said no, he went on how he loved red hair and how the hair in that image looked kinda red, no matter what I said. It made me intensely uncomfortable and pissed me off, "I sent you a link to a site with things I MADE, I put work into, and none of them are worth your attention, but you really HAVE TO push your redhead fetish on me."
blergh

I don't particularly care what people look like, I just want icons as a help to group posts in my head.

Re: Raaaambling

[aldersprig]

There was a period of time where I kept thinking all of Ri's posts with the Trix icon AND all of my posts with the Trix icon were all from Trix!

And I've had the same Djinni-icon problem, too. Esp. with people who swap around a lot.

Guy sounds like a jerk, and I can get going with an abstract after that. (See my kitty as my main icon here, leaf on LJ)

[thnidu]

Hm. I never thought of identifying the person by the icon. This one is my default. I have several DOZEN icons, and I switch them around according to, usually, my mood or the subject matter. Many of them, maybe most, I've made myself, some I've taken from public sites, and some I've snarfed from other bloggers, only with permission. Similarly, occasionally someone else asks to use one of my homemades, and I always allow that.

[aldersprig]

I have seen a photo of you, or more than one, so that does help.

[kuro_neko00]

I'm basically a hermit in the physical world. I do the vast majority of my socializing online. And I'm with you 100% on your initial post. I associate a person's nick with that person. It's part of their identity in my head, as much as Kuro_Neko is part of my own self-identity. Anyone who intentionally, or even unintentionally, uses someone else's nick to fool me makes me both angry and uncomfortable.

I can't really comment on the Icon thing. Since I ignore most of the newer forms of social media out there. I stick almost exclusively to the four early im systems (icq, msn, yahoo, aim), irc and old fashioned forums. Only the forums use icons and not always even then, so I don't really pay any attention to them.

[natf]

That is partly why I use the same avatar on all social media, even FaceBorg when I have to log in there - my good old puffin photo:


I only vary it on LJ and DW occasionally when the subject matter requires. I have a LOT of LJ icons on LJ and fewer on DW!

My natalief LJ and Twitter both use the puffin as the default icon (above). My natdaylog LJ and Twitter both use my handful of pills icon as the default icon:


My nf_links Twitter uses the links icon I have on this LJ account and I tend to retweet nf_links tweets on the other accounts:


My icons are how I see myself online and so I can understand you seeing people as their icons/avatars.

[aldersprig]

Ah, THAT'S what the chain means! I hadn't made the (very obvious) connection!

[natf]

I have replaced the links icon on LJ. Better?

[aldersprig]

Ah!! Nice.