Shortly before Marty caused a ruckus with his avatar theory post, I had embarked upon an experiment of my own. I'd been taking careful note of the "popularity" of the hot chick avatars/personas that had been sweeping the social networks. I wanted to test that out for myself and see just how difficult it would be to blog as someone else. I figured I'd only be someone else up to a point - in other words, I was going to be my former self. I would assume the persona of myself at a younger age - mid-20's or so. I would be reliving my youth, so to speak, which I thought might be fun for me, and would make for an interesting experiment as well. I would use an avatar that was attractive, but would not be identifiable as a particular person. I would create profiles under her name, and traverse the web as my new persona.
Thus began my life as WebChicklet. Let me give you the down-and-dirty cut-to-the-chase bottom line right now. Creating and maintaining a fake persona, even one that is based upon your own persona, is hard. So hard in fact, that I don't recommend it to anyone but the extremely talented, or the extremely crazy. 😉 Just try twittering as more than one person. I flat out couldn't do it. Plus, without being able to rely upon your existing network of social media friends, it's starting from scratch. That might be ok if you're a complete beginner to the whole process anyway, but for anyone else, it sucks. Leveraging existing social network friends is important, folks. It's more important than you realize until you try to start fresh. If you don't have to - don't do it. Simple as that. (I do think there were a few typical males who followed WebChicklet simply because of the avatar/name, but not enough to justify the whole process).
So, WebChicklet is now coming out of the closet - er, so to speak. She is me. I am she. And together, we will continue the journey of blogging as one. You probably recognize that avatar from your MyBlogLog widget, if you use one. For anyone who feels deceived, I apologize. Still, it was an experiment, and I would not have been able to run the experiment without the deception. If it makes you feel any better, I haven't made one cent of money from the WebChicklet blog since it began, so you haven't contributed any of your hard-earned cash in any way to my little deception.
So if any of you were wondering, I strongly recommend against trying to "legitimately" run a fake social media avatar/persona. It's just too hard. Well, at least it was for me.
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That post made me laugh. I suck at lying myself and I can’t think how hard it would be to write like someone else when you have already found your blogging “voice” over the course of many years.
I don’t know why, but I love it! You conducted a non-blind study on social media personas.
I hope WebChecklet continues to maintain her site! She’s a smart cookie (or piece of gum). 🙂
I think the test was a great idea, many people would never come out and say they were behind another social profile. I personally could never do it, I suck at telling lies and I am who I am so it would be hard to try and be someone else. I couldn’t imagine trying to keep up with that as well as my daily work, how much time did it consume each day from you doing this?
intersting post.. however.. FYI.. someone will get you back for the deception so “be prepared”.. (the boy scout says)…
Paisley, is that a threat, a warning, or a prediction?
wow! so you are a kind of Dott. Jekyll / Mr.Hyde… a little creepy! apart from joke. that’s a nice study and a wonderful example of how people can split themselves in order to be renovated and create quality stuff!
I agree that’s why I put my ugly mug on all my social posts. lol
LOL! I did a similar test last year but I found that there were more people clicking through because of the hot chick in my avatar… that’s why I left it there 😉
But I guess it was slightly different from your test.
Jay
@Donna: Well…the “ruckus” actually had very little to do with avatars, real or fake. Also to our mind, corporate brand ambassadorship has very little to do with “popularity of the hot chick avatars/personas.” 🙂
This is a very fun article. We hope to meet you in person @ Pubcon if you are there.
Interesting little case study. I can only imagine the difficulty as I have enough of a time with just me. LOL
Btw, I just refreshed the page and all formatting is gone. I’m commenting now on just a big post on white background.
Dennis, that’s probably a wp-supercache foobar. I’ve turned caching off for the moment.
I couldn’t see why anyone would want to act like someone else over the internet. Yeah, having a provocative or interesting avatar might be a misleading, it’s better than actually adopting a new persona. Interesting post!
Maintaining a fake account is very hard..I tried it out before and I just find it exhausting…I have to constantly lie about my location, personality, etc..that’s why I decide to close my other account and concentrate on my original one..^^
I see. I have all sorts of issues commenting on blogs with that installed.
What can I say… You are very “bad” girl, Donna! :)))
PS my 2c https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/social-media-optimization-assets-the-fake-user.html
I love seeing the real person face with some creativity or personality.
Very interesting experiment, indeed! I’ve experienced some of this myself – in getting my husband’s local business online. I’m following Seth Godin’s guidelines – which involved including your business address on the first ‘fixed’ post on your blog. For this reason, I haven’t used any of my own already-established contacts or ‘followings’ to promote him. It’s been quite tricky starting from scratch. So tricky, in fact, that I’ve given up and ignored the whole thing (his site, his Soc. Network accts, etc) several times! This last time – he’s been sitting online ignored for months!
It has, itself, been quite the interesting experiment. I’m sure after the first of the year I will take it back up again and then maybe do a case study on my experiences, too.
Donna,
That’s hilarious. The difficulty of maintaining an alter ego makes you wonder how some psychos do it so effortlessly.