Jon Pretty

I think a few people feel liberated by having an online persona which they can't reify IRL. In all the cases I'm thinking of, the online persona is more caustic and opinionated, and I suspect social unacceptability is the reason it gets constrained to online life.

But it always makes me wonder, which persona is more the façade, and which is more the reality? I'm a bit torn between distrusting someone who presents two conflicting personae, and being happy for them for having found an outlet to express themselves.

it seems like you could be happy for them and also distrust them. do you want to enter into a closer relationship or start a business with a person who might be caustic and antisocial or might be just fine, but you can't know yet because there's a conflict?

to me, Twitter is already "society". Twitter can be different than offline society and can be treated differently -- some people are more comfortable talking here so it's their main social outlet. someone who is uncivil here is, in my mind, uncivil.

that is, they have this society (in which it can actually be easier to be civil than offline). if they're a jerk here, they're going to be a jerk IRL too, it's just a matter of time.

But maybe we're talking about different sorts of people. I've had quite nuanced conversations with some people, then they've posted tweets like "if you don't agree with X, then go fuck yourself". I have sympathy because I often do agree with X, but I think it's uncivil.