Putting aside the discussion of ethical aspects of such actions for
another time, this is a great way to find out more about yourself, lose your best friends, and make yourself subject to sudden attacks of conscience.
I first came into contact with this kind of activity while talking to someone whose name I promised not to disclose. This person
pretended to be a completely
different person on
ICQ while talking to one of our
mutual friends. This began an innocent joke, but the person was drawn into it, and abandoned
their plans to reveal their true identity, instead opting for the tasty bits opinions they would not otherwise have ever heard of (such as, for example, that the other person had a crush on the impersonator in real life). Highly
embarrassing, and
inconvenient, since they had to let every one of their friends on the plan, so they would not accidentally disclose the innocent fact of the
impostor having an ICQ adress to the
victim.
In another instance, one of my friends,
Morte here on everything, pretended to be someone else to
necromancer, resulting in a long
string of words which summed up, basically, to "
All my friends are assholes". Now
Morte intends to ^6Hsdf4D
CENSORED BY MORTE. But I'm getting off track here.
If you intend to perform this feat of deception, here are some useful hints:
0. Do not do this.
1. Do not-Not-
NOT do this if you're unsure of your qualifications as an actor. You will be discovered, and the
consequences are usually negative.
2. Above all else, be careful! Do not mention the names of your mutual friends, keep to the writing style you picked for your
alter ego, make sure your legend is consistent.
3. Do not be too insistent asking for gossip about your real self.
4. To quell their suspicions, try to appear online at the same time as your alter ego, using
multi icq hack, or two computers, the latter method having the advantage of a possibility to have different IP addresses for your egos (for the benefit of the more suspicious of your friends)
Update: Check out the node on
Jaymz
The Penguin Rears Her Ugly Head