As marmalade brings up in her post, the issue of identity is everywhere, whether it's online or not. A number of presentations today, especially tophat1's bit about avatars, reminded me of how easy it is to lie about oneself online.

Here's an example: a friend of a friend likes to play chess. I've heard my friend tell me some very strange stories about this friend of his. Apparently his friend--I'll call him "James"--likes to play chess online, and he pretends to be somebody else when he plays. James says if he has a boring screenname like "James188" or something like that, then he won't get a lot of people requesting to play with him. So instead he makes up screen names like "cutiepiegirl" or "omglolGirlfriend" or something else utterly ridiculous so that people will play with him. James assumes that most of these chess players in these forums are males, and he thinks that changing his screen name to something that ridiculous will entice players. And it actually works a lot of the times.