First, I apologize if this would fit better in another area, but I can't really find a good fit for it anywhere.
How many of you have, at some point, mis-represented yourself online as being the opposite gender as what you really are? What reasons did you have for doing so? How long have/did you maintain the charade? Did it lead to any odd/uncomfortable situations?
I've never actually done this myself, and I'm not really sure why I'm asking. Idle curiousity, I suppose. Especially since traps/reverse traps seem to be the new hotness these days.
I read a book about Internet sociology that says this happens a lot. I don't know if it's true. Most sociology is bullshit anyway.
I've personally never done it. I have heard some people do, though.
I pretended to be a girl just to fuck with someone who was irritating me. Other than that, I don't have any reason to misrepresent my gender online.
Although, being gay, I could probably abuse it to get some random guy to send me naked pics... but I don't. I have too much of a conscience. Damn it.
>>4
would you send me naked pics if i tell you i'm a guy?
>>1
I do it all the time. Mainly in online videogames.
It arouses me.
I did it a lot of times and long periods of times. I thought it was fun to pretend to be someone else. You know, almost like living as someone else's life but you control what happens. I don't know how to explain it, it wasn't the greatest experience as I upset a bunch of people.
I've thought about starting a otaku blog pretending to be a guy. I guess I would want to pretend to be a guy so I wouldn't stand out or something and so I could keep my professional "real" life seperate. But it would be too much of a bother to juggle some stupid "secret identity". Besides, I would get way more unwanted attention and drama being found out to be a girl then I would just saying I was a girl in the first place.
Good topic.
I'm female but on this board for some reason I always get accused of being a man whenever I say or imply that I'm a girl/woman. I don't get it.. why would anyone lie here, it's all anonymous anyway.
I like how the anonymity here sort of wipes out gender.
I mean sure you can say or think that someone here is this or that gender or has this or that sexual preference etc, but in the end you will never know.
Anyway.. once I sort of pretended to be a guy, on a non-anonymous board. Or rather I didn't deny it.
I had a gender-neutral username there, and one day I noticed how other users referred to me as "he" or "him". Then I realized I could apparently get away with being a guy if I wanted to.
So, just for fun, I played along for a while. I didn't actually say I was a guy, I just never denied it. Once someone had started to assume I was male, others did it too. It was great.
Some random guys there even sort of invited me in to be one of them, to hang out with them on there.. you know? This was because they used to gang bash other people on the board that didn't agree with them. And they found I had a foul mouth too so they wanted me in. The funny thing was they seemed to hate women and anything female related etc, like women rights and such. And there I was right with them lol, playing along, pretending to be a woman-hating jerk.
This was on a TV-show board. Shortly after the show was ended they took down the board as well. So I never got the chance to fess up. That's a shame kinda :)
I feel more like a boy than a girl. I don't pretend to be a boy online but I'm usually assumed to be so, so I just let them think what they want. I don't go on non-anonymous boards much, though. I like how the anonymity wipes out gender. I don't like being known as a girl.
i'm a guy, but people usually assume i'm a girl on irc an i usually just let them think that. i've found that people are a lot nicer to me if they think i'm a girl.
>>12
Look at the amount of 'X's in that ID! 4 of them! What are the chances?
I've never specifically pretended to be someone else for anything more than a quick joke/troll, but I've played female characters in games before. Only one of those cases was completely justified, I just felt like it for any others.
There's also a running joke of sorts on a board I go to which resulted in me changing my listed gender to female, but I'm sure anyone who knows me there knows it's not true.
>>1
On 2ch/2chan-style boards (for instance here): All the bleeping time.
I pretend to be the other gender 60% of the time I do actively insinuate or state that I am of a certain gender (which I do maybe 30-40% of the time I comment on anything), I think.
Otherwise: Not really. Just that some places,.. well, "no gurls on the intarwebs" you know. If I don't feel like getting comments about my gender, I just switch to the one that's going to get way less/none of that, when speaking of topics that I don't feel really have to do with my gender, but are likely to get stupid comments about my gender anyway.
In the past online, I've been mistaken for a bloke on many occasions though. Something about me being too blunt, honest and knowing more about computers than what people apparently expect girls to be. I usually can't be arsed to correct them, so I just ignore it all, go on with being myself and just see how long it takes them to notice they guessed wrong. After all, unless I'm talking about something body-related such as periods or random boob-ache, it doesn't matter what gender I have, as I'm as good as married, bi/pansexual, as well as that I do not identify with any of the two gender stereotypes: I feel like me, myself, not some category that's supposed to be like this and that.
>I just switch to the one that's going to get way less/none of that
Ranma spotted!
There is a form of transgenderism that happens to perfectly normal straight men (usually in their 40s and 50s)with families where they find pleasure or excitement in identifying themselvs with the object of their desire. Its possible that some Guy to Girl people on the internet could be experiencing a mild or similar form of this.
I roleplay male characters in games and forum-based roleplay, but I don't represent myself as being a male.
I've pretended to be a girl in MMORPGs... but I stopped that nowadays, since I usually have friends play with me that know otherwise
awkward situations >.<;;
I use male characters when I play online games, and I have a male avatar on Gaia, but I never actually claim to be a guy, I just let others assume that I am.
Almost always play a female character in games. It's become sort of a running joke between me and my friends.
Slightly more worryingly was after playing a MMORPG for a few months a large number of my friends ingame were shocked to find out I was actually male...
Considering these people were fully aware that something like 90% of all female characters are actually male I have to take it as a direct comment on my personallity. That and never having used TeamSpeak.