Someone has stolen
your online identity.
They have taken over all of your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin–even the MySpace account you haven’t thought about in over 8 years) and all of your website comment accounts. You’re horrified, until you realize that whoever this person is, they are a better version of you than you are. They’re funnier, they’re smarter, they resolve conflicts instead of starting them and they have a miraculous knack for shutting down trolls in a way that even the trolls find charming.
As a result of this, your followers grow exponentially–to the point that people recognize you in public. They’re always excited to meet you, but also always slightly disappointed when they do. Because somehow you seem different and much less awesome in person.
But despite this, your Internet-world success starts to translate into real-world fortune as you gain opportunities to capitalize on “your” following. Somehow the person running your accounts even manages to make obviously sponsored tweets and status updates seem cool and interesting.
The more you achieve, the more you know you are a fraud, but you’re afraid that if you tell anybody the truth it will all end and you’ll go back to normal.
Do you tell?
Yeah. Dishonesty is a pain in the ass, even if you can promise me that in this scenario, there would never, ever be any negative repercussions to keeping up the charade.
Heck no! Get to work, Net doppleganger, and help me get a better job! If you do a good enough job maybe I’ll cut you in for some of that sweet book deal $.
“For some reason Nyssa’s book just isn’t as good as her tweets. I guess she’s only good in 140 characters.”