Can i has internetz?

In reply to Kristy's mediated artifact presentation on the internet and online identities, I have a few anecdotes to share about being on the "extreme" side of having online aliases.

#1 FANFICTION
As most of you probably know from my previous blog posts, I used to write fanfiction for anime and video games. At first I was virtually (haha, pun) a nobody on the site when using the third person, but once I switched to the second-person, reader-insert, which was in demand, my popularity rose to the point where I was suddenly being some readers addressed as -sama. -sama is a Japanese honorific that indicates a high level of respect and in the site I was on, it was an unofficial honor. It was cute. Until I started getting emails from readers that wanted to be friends on facebook. Or when readers started linking me to fanart they drew for my fanfiction (fan-fan-work?). But what hit my tolerance for internet creeping: when readers found and contacted me on other websites asking me if I were so-and-so on the fanfiction site.

But in the position of having (-insert obnoxious stats sharing-) :
-"favorited" by over 40 users
-stories "favorited"over 300 times
-over 700 reviews (comments, usually positive)
-an average of over 1,500 hits per chapter per story (hits being chapter views); one one-shot even had near 3,000 hits on its own.

I couldn't just be just "another" "regular" fan. I had to act with a purpose. I never outlined my stories and wrote chapters in one sitting, but to fulfill their image of an "authoress" I assured that there were drafts and conclusions already planned. I had to put in more research reviewing game scripts to make sure that there were no plot holes. I had to reread mangas to analyze characters to portray them as accurately as possible. Soon, writing fanfiction felt like an obligation to the reader. When I announced that I would be on hiatus because of college applications and later that I was moving on from my fanfiction writing, some readers wished me good luck and other expressed their sympathy in that "the real world" was interfering with the online reality we shared. To some readers, it hadn't even occurred to them that I was even a few years younger than them and had was a separate person IRL.

And as a quick tip I picked up: HOW TO GET POPULAR ON ANIME FANFICTION SITES FAST: ROMANCE, DRAMA, HUMOR, AND A NICE DOSE OF SEXUAL INNUENDOS/TENSIONS. I'm telling you... fangirls can get... pretty demanding. (I was once message if I would write a sex scene. I couldn't bring myself to even try, but if I did, I'm sure it would have added another few hundred hits.)

#2 BETTER OFF AS A GUY (THE AMANDA PROJECT AND SABASTIAN; GAIAONLINE)

In my sophomore year of high school, one of classmates was promoting her mother's recently published work, the Amanda Project. It was an interactive mystery, and readers were encouraged to go online and participate in how the story would unfold (quite literally as elements on the online forums would be integrated in later books). Many of my classmates made an account while it was a fad in my grade, and I decided to jump the bandwagon. On a whim, I decided to register as a male. Lo and behold, Sebastian, a male who liked occasional chick flicks, action movies, comics, rock and electronic music, and was single. The only thing that wasn't "true" was my gender. I wrote a couple of blog posts using my voice and girls adored how I was so well-written, romantic, and not a stereotypical "dude."

It was amusing UNTIL I started receiving messages from girls asking me if I lived in X and attended Y school because I reminded them of somebody they knew. OR when girls linked me to their facebooks and expressed their interests in being a friend. Some were even more straightforward and asked me if I would be interested in dating them (internet dates, idk). To some of them, I represented the "perfect boyfriend." The only lie I made up was that I played bass (I can't play instruments for my life) and was in a band; I only did so that I could share a poem under the guise of "lyrics." It only amped my fictional sex appeal. So, lesson learned, I dumped the site and broke some hearts.

But even before the whole fiasco on the Amanda Project, I had a second account on Gaia (a "mule") that was a male since I wanted to get male-items to sell on my female account. If you clicked on the avatar's profile it would have led to an empty page with only one friend, my main account. The usernames were literally Silent Departures and Silence Departed. It was OBVIOUS. Yet, I posted under the male account and posed as a twin with my best friend who also had a male account. We had our avatars resemble each others and we trolled around. Suddenly, we were getting in "bro-chats" in where other guys asked about which female video game characters we thought were the hottest and pursued by females who though it was "cool" that we were twins. It made for a great ongoing joke between my friends, but once I started getting hit on by other users, who according their profiles were as young as 13, I called quits and even posted on my profile that it was just a second account.

So, I've learned my lesson: the internet's a scary place.