Do a lot of people pretend to be of a different demographic online?

[Anonymous]

I have an acquaintance who pretended for years to be a black woman on Twitter, and now pretends to be a married gay man with no kids on Reddit. She is a married white lady with kids. She says she does it for anonymity. It does not sit right with me.

Do other people do this? I do things to maintain anonymity online but this is a bridge too far for me. When she told me this, I had such an instant revulsion to it. Am I off base or is she?

[Anonymous]

I pretend to be an 11-year-old girl online. In real life I'm a middle-aged FBI agent.

[Anonymous]

Not normal. Beware of people like this, OP.

[Anonymous]

Of course, it's the internet

[Anonymous]

The part that is weird is affirmatively providing demographic details that are totally false. Like affirmatively saying "as a black woman..." or "as a gay man..." when you aren't those things.

It's pretty easy to just not supply any demographic info online or to provide only vague-but-true info (disclosing you are white is not going to ruing your anonymity -- there are many white people). I also sometimes change small details without changing demographics. Like I'll say I have a different number of kids than I do, change the gender of my kids if I'm referencing one of them, or include a fake detail (like say I've been married a different number of years than I have, or state my profession is a similar but different one than my actual profession.

To just affirmatively claim to be black or gay or a different gender than you are is intentionally misleading and, I think, the goal is likely to try and claim authority or sympathy you can't actually lay claim to IRL. That's gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I pretend to be an 11-year-old girl online. In real life I'm a middle-aged FBI agent.

Best answer.

[Anonymous]

I would say that your acquaintance has a mental disorder.