Virtual Identity Quotes

Living as we do in the age of Facebook, we shouldn't be surprised that some countries are starting to imagine themselves more as social networks than as a physical place.

I happen to believe that video games will be the largest sport and entertainment in the world. The reason for that is a video game can be every sport. You can be anybody.

I use those Bitmojis, the ones you can make look like yourself.

Sometimes that's the only way I exist, talking to people through pop culture.

I've lived my entire life online.

Charlie Appleyard can be anybody; but Ive used him sometimes in chat pieces, and these are all chat pieces about the history of Charlie Appleyard.

There's no difference between my persona on Twitter and Instagram and in real life.

People can hide behind a computer, they can hide behind a cell phone, they can tweet. They can say whatever they want. I'm not worried about them.

I think there's a danger in how we can get addicted to the things that reaffirm to us who we are. For example, Facebook; people who make these Facebook posts about what's happening to them, just so people will chime in and give them positive reinforcement.

I could have a sex change and become a woman, physically. But in some ways that isn't even necessary. Because we live in a time when real life, and virtual life are at parity. We are so used to being creators, and creating versions of ourselves, mainly online, and through our communication technology, that I could very well picture myself as a woman, and consider myself a woman, even if my body would be classified as a male body by a medical examiner.

Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery.

The way I'm portrayed on the Internet is partly my doing, but it's partly the people that are presenting it so, you know, people come to know this strange version of a human. It can be pretty weird because people think I'm digging through dumpsters and smell like crap all the time.

I like to chat either at my site or, sometimes, through MSN and ICQ. And even if I do reveal my identity, there are a lot of times when no one believes me.

It's much easier to put yourself out there under the guise of a character. You get a different name, different habits, different words. When I have to just be Nathan, that's when I feel vulnerable.

I think I'm a mousepad. I don't want to be a mousepad, but I'm a mousepad. I'm also a screen saver, thank you very much. It's weird.

My body is an avatar.

The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults -- are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.

Both multiplayer games and online forums have this property of virtual anonymity. Other people can't really see you; they don't really know who you are. And so the sort of social moderating mechanisms in real life, and your desire not to offend people around you, don't really adjust.

Step back from your Facebook Wall for a moment: Doesn't it, suddenly, look a little ridiculous? Your life in this format?

When we're in game worlds, I believe that many of us become the best version of ourselves: the most likely to help at a moment's notice. The most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes. To get up after failure and try again.

There's people who feel that, Well, if I could profit off of sellin' sex to an eleven-year-old kid that comes through some kind of virtual portal, then I'm not really doin' it in actuality. I'm just kind of co-signing or fostering it, 'cause it can't be attached to me. I'm like, Yes it can, 'cause people are livin' through their avatar.

Having your own character in a video game is pretty cool.

Don't judge me by what someone posts on my page on Facebook.

Twitter is like - it's like I blinked into existence.

I don't think it's more positive to have a Twitter account, a Tumblr, and a blog. Someone without those things will use their time to do other things, like read books or swim or talk to their children or read websites or listen to music or write books or lie in bed or sit in a chair. I don't think any of these things are more positive than any other things. I don't think having an internet presence helps financially.