Cyber-Persona has been around in the internet world since the 1990s. They have a significant usage among both young and adult population especially in the multi-user game world. Current technologies such as 2ndLife allows for avatars to live any imagination of lifeform attached or detached to real persona. Chatrooms routinely have people posing as their own younger selves, or in the case of pedophilia, as someone quite younger than oneself, except for Raimund Liebling also called Roman Polanski.
In the real world, both authors/writers and spies routinely use a pen name or alias. Authors and actors live the life of their characters they create. People such as the famous architect Frank Gehry changed their name legally, from an obvious jewish sounding Goldberg, so they can pretend to be someone else, even though he was living under the largesse from the wealthy jewish client Lewis for decades before he became anyone of architectural substance. Le Corbusier changed his name to the exotic form from something mundane as Jeanneret-Gris – a name more suitable for a kitchen appliance . Russian and American spies, as well as American Special Ops in Iraq/Afghanistan warfront sport beards and local garb to blend in with the natives, where a marine crew cut would have them six feet under in no time. Mossad routinely blends into the local culture of many countries, especially banking and media social circles.
Voluntary Schizophrenia, both real double-triple life and cyber-schizophrenia via avatars are a fundamental part of human existence. The concept of Avatar has been around longer than written words, as the sanskrit word itself indicates.
Children routinely live the life of Barbie or GI Joe or Teenage Mutant Ninja. Or Superman & Spiderman. Older adults live in respectable suits and ties during the daytime and change to leather, chains and rebel road hogs on weekends. Under the tough unreachable professional garb is a screaming victoria secret. The greek philosophers called it oikos & polis.
Boston Red Sox baseball fans, wherever they are, belong to the Red Sox Nation. Every provincial championship in America is a World Championship when you cant even find local diversity in them let alone national and international diversity.
The egyptian pharaohs conducted heb-sed ceremonies where a person is transformed completely to a different human, demi-god or god, breaking all links and semblances to the past persona. The old self is officially dead, complete with funeral procession.
In hindu and buddhist mythologies, gods routinely change avatars, souls routinely change lifeforms.
So, lets get some real perspectives and time scales into the play. The very concept of identity was deconstructed long before it was established.
The geo-politics of identity is a figment of infertile imagination.
When was the last time you really gave some thought about who you really are?
