strawberrysingh , you're my new muse!

you're so weird Berry, ily.

most of the people i interact with on twitter are real people who put their rl photos/gender/age on their twitter because they are rl bloggers. but things like that have never mattered to me at all.

Nope.

It wouldn't.

I have had people change their interactions with me once they knew my age. It was sad.

Not with me, no. I'd treat them same as I always have.

since 99+% of online flirtations are just harmless interactions, it seems to me that it doesn't really matter.

your age/gender/looks don't change your personality, why should I change the way I talk to you over it?

It wouldn't matter to me.

Second Life culture used to embrace the idea that you should accept others as they represent themselves online. Do you think that's changed over the years?

botgirl: Oh definitely, especially with the advent of voice.

SL used to be a place where people could go to express their innerselves where they otherwise wouldn't be able to do so in real life, but SL has shifted and evolved to represent a virtual real life as it were.

I must note here that I've seen people in SL get harassed for years on end because their RL gender didn't match their avatar's (and it's not like they tried to hide the "discrepancy").

I think people now EXPECT you to be basically the same gender/age/race etc as you present your avatar to be.

I think this question is hard to judge, (for one, I've never had interactions on Twitter) But I think anyone who thinks they don't change their behavior on their perceptions of others is fooling themself

I've had the voice experience in SL as well - it rips away any pretense that people can be what they want pretty quickly, even if they think they are being "pretty close to RL".

I never once thought Phaylen was male until she announced it.

I don't like to use voice at all, especially when I am in my kid avatar. It ruins it for ME.

Also? Voice modulators are cheap and easily available. so there is that

i don't change my behaviour unless you are under age because i don't want to get in trouble for exposing a minor to something their parents might not want them to be exposed to. minus that, i don't change.

Chestnut: Many of them don't alter your voice properly. I've tried a good number of voice mods, and none of them made me sound like who I actually was/am. LUCKILY I got the best voice mod of all now: HRT

nimil: minors shouldnt be in SL anyways. Even with the merging of the teen grid :|

well i mean on twitter, online presences elsewhere. this was not about sl

nimil: Ah but she did ask about SL, so I was answering about SL, I can't answer for twitter - Don't play that game

also I have to say, for this experiment just moving the conversation to video from text-only made the whole thing dramatically awkward in all 3 so, hard to decide if any was more so.

AnandaS: That's another interesting topic. How the medium (like Twitter versus in person conversation) changes the communication style and content.

It's pretty obvious that we don't talk like we text. But I think we don't talk like we tweet. Although it's not as obvious a difference.

There are so many styles of tweeting. Some tweet running news be it "I just witnessed police brutality" or "I just ate a donut" Others tweet for the favs/retweets "Insert profound observation here" Many more..

styles and ways to use twitter. Some are more conversational, some are statements of fact or opinion, some troll for arguments or attention. Twitter is endlessly interesting in that way

I'm fine with not asking for data about someone's non-SL self: I'm less fine with getting handed an elaborate story about someone's RL self. 'I come here to not be my RL self' is perfectly fine by me...

I think there's always been a healthy population who wants "the truth" about who other people are, even in Second Life. What "the truth" is, however, always seems more elusive than it's presented.

there's definitely a difference between assuming a pseudonymous identity with no disclosure of RL info, and intentionally misrepresenting RL details.

It is very murky territory.

Chestnut: I think it becomes murky when relationships move from casual friendships to emotionally-bonded relationships, or when there is fraud for the purpose of exploitation or profit.

yes. absolutely.