My pink-haired student did it – showed me how to impersonate.
She was a playwright who’d sign into chat rooms under different personas. As “Bathsheba” or “Aristotle,” she’d flirt or argue with “Genghis Khan” and “Virgin Mary.”
That fired my imagination. On early chat sites, you could dial up and call yourself anything you wanted. No passwords.
My first identity was “BoPeep” – to which someone posted “a/s/l?” (Age-sex-location.)
Mostly lying, I typed “22, female, Sheboygan.” Women’s names always attracted lewd pictures.
Men’s names attracted bullies. When I was “Manson,” I got cussed out.
But I could be popular. When I signed in as “Heaving Bosoms,” 50 new friends flung themselves at me.
I loved my disguises. No one knew I was a professor who regularly wrote about “synecdoche” and “physiognomy.”
But I couldn’t shut up about politics. I didn’t get along well with others once I learned how to be pithy and provocative.
I could josh or eviscerate. I just needed the right stomping ground.
And that’s how I got where I am now.
Yup, you can find me on Facebook.
