The problem of online identity is expressed best in an old 'New Yorker' cartoon with a picture of a dog next to a computer, and the dog says, 'No one online knows you're a dog.'
The characters that I have on Twitter have very little resemblance to me, the person who's writing them.
The more we are involved in social media, the easier it is for someone to lie about who they are and to kind of fabricate a story about them, fabricate a life that is grander than the one that they lead.
I recognize that, to someone who doesn't know my history, maybe I seem like this guy who gets dressed up for the Internet.
We live in an age where there is a firehose of information, and there is no hierarchy of what is important and what is not. Where the truth is often fashioned through a variety of digital means. Are you your avatar? Who are you in social media? What face do you turn toward the world? How much does it have in common with who you actually are?
You have a certain identity that you present to the world on Facebook, and you have a certain identity that you present with the telephone, and they are different.
The version of me on the Internet, it's not me. It's one portion.
I think you can get away with so much more offensiveness when you're operating behind a stuffed teddy bear or a cartoon or something that's not real, because it's forgiven. It's like having a little kid in a movie curse - it's funny because it's not natural.
