The internet can be the source of many things as it is today, information, pornography, resources, socializing, but to a large group of people, it can be the chance of compensating for those things that life has negated them from day one -a larger penis, a hunky build, a successful career and so on-

What is ethical and what isn’t when it comes to “selling” your online image? In second life this is easier than in any other virtual platforms, as you can pretty much build your alter ego to your liking from scratch, but in some other social platforms, this task might be a bit more complex. This came into discussion as I was wondering and exploring second life yesterday with my significant other, and we stumbled into a person who was really proud to be a faithful reproduction of his real life self and who was being judgmental of a person who chose to be something completely different from what he really is in real life.

Who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong when it comes to social platforms and the image you decide to portray as “real”? Where are the limits of reality? Are these drawn by the prospect of a factual meeting with the person behind the screen and finding out that truth might have been tweaked a bit?

In the end, when it comes to social networks, whether you call it twitter, facebook, myspace or second life, what truly really matters is what’s inside; like my son says “If you’re a dick in real life, no matter how much you try to hide it, you’ll always be a dick” or in my father’s immortal words “if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, no matter if it looks like monkey, son… that’s gotta be a duck”

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Labels: online social networks Spike Clemenceau virtual platforms