Online Identities

Three of my friends gave up Facebook for Lent. All three posted about it yesterday on Facebook. Heck, they didn't even make it through the first day. ;)

I promise I haven't wrought havoc on your profile pages since you left, posted no embarrassing photos, written no inappropriate wall posts or tagged you in my questionable status updates.

There's plenty of time left for that! Mwahahaaa!

My favorite thing someone gave up for Lent this year is "spending money on food other than groceries." Go Holly!!

~

SuziQ and I shared a great full-circle moment yesterday. We did interviews with a few big name music biz peeps back in the fansite days, and she told me she's about to score one with a singer affiliated with the old group, for the magazine she works for now. Awesome! I can't tell you how happy I am that I found her again and we're back in touch.

A funny story... Three of us ran the fansite. She primarily worked on the message board side of it, since she didn't care to know anything about website design or maintenance. We met during a mass fan exodus from another site. We started our own infinitely more successful website, and most of the girls from the original site followed us. Through that harrying process, we three bonded and got to know each other very well online, by our real names, not just our screen names.

After a couple of years running the board with her and countless daily conversations on IM, etc., I wanted to snail mail her a gift. She gave me her address and then said that she had a confession.

Her real name wasn't Sally. It was Sue.

I'm big on maintaining my privacy on the net, always using a screen name or just my first name when possible. I'm sort of obsessive about it. She totally one-upped ME on the privacy by giving us a fake real name? (Genius! That would never even occur to me.) We were good friends! She hoped we wouldn't be mad and all I could do was laugh. And then I wondered if Sue was even her real name. Ahaha. It is.

Another story about fansite girl identities--

The first-ever of many trips we organized as a fansite group was a concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. About ten of us went for a three-day weekend. We met the first day by the pool as we each arrived. One by one we showed up, bursting with anticipation to meet the people we'd talked so much with online. Everyone was very huggy and fun and wonderful, and it was as if we'd known each other for years.

There was one girl was always making hilarious, bawdy comments on the board and in chat. She had a very girly screen name, almost too girly, and K, Sally Sue and I had been surmising for months that she was possibly a guy. She was extremely blunt and didn't put up with anyone being a jerk online. She was sort of the bouncer of the message board. Turned out the entire Vegas group, probably the whole board, had been thinking she was a dude, but didn't realize everyone else had been thinking it too.

In Vegas, we were eagerly awaiting "her" arrival, and she was the last to show up. She kept texting us that she was going to be down, but "I have to put on my makeup..." then "I simply must repaint my nails and then I'll be down," etc. The more girly the texts and the later it got, the more certain we were that she was a man. Someone spoke to her very briefly and said she had a deep voice.

Every guy that passed, we would look and wait and whisper, "Maybe that's her!" You should have seen us trying not to giggle when she finally showed up. She is tall, with a sultry voice, and there is absolutely nothing male about her. Well, other than she'll kick your ass if you get out of line. One of my favorite people ever!

We talked to Sue while we were in Vegas, and her first question was, "Sooo... is she a GUY?!"