Online Self-Descriptions

   On the Internet, opportunities to manage your impression with a written self-description, something like an informal and brief biography, are not uncommon. In online college classes, for example, faculty typically ask students to introduce themselves in the computer conference during the first week of class. They do this partly to make sure the students are connected and are learning the ins and outs of the software, but they also want the students to become acquainted with one another. For many of them, this is a first experience at online self-presentation, but patterns emerge quickly even without any specific instructions from the teacher. The style that the first two or three students use often becomes the norm. In some classes, each introduction might be only one or two sentences with little more than major and class. In others, it becomes much longer and richer, with hobbies, family life, hopes for the future, and fears about taking a course on the Internet.

   When you subscribe to a mailing list, the moderator often asks you to introduce yourself to the group by an automated return message that also contains the list's purpose, discussion topics, and general instructions. Again, many people are new at this self-presentation mode and in this context they have no model to follow. They just joined and have not yet seen anyone else's introductions, or even had much chance to see what others are discussing. The result is a bizarre mixture of first impressions that range from the brief and highly professional to the heart-rending personal confessional. I recently joined a list in which the automated message warned new subscribers to wait a bit before posting an introduction, a tactic that will help the group develop more consistent norms.

   MUD software offers a unique means for players to control their self-presentations. You can type a description of yourself that other players will read whenever they use the "look" command and add your nickname to it. "Look" is used frequently when a player enters a room, a phenomenon that demonstrates again how eager we are to gather some material to form an impression quickly. On the fantasy role-playing MUDs and other multiuser games, the descriptions embed each character in the MUD's context. On PernMUSH, a MUD styled after Ann McCaffrey's books, all players are expected to stay in character unless they enter a special OOC (Out Of Character) room to get help on the software. On social MUDs like LambdaMOO, some descriptions are fantastical ("an impish, mischievous elf carrying the planetary gems"), but Pavel Curtis notes that most players tire of this role-playing effort quickly. They return to a more normal mode of self-presentation, albeit with some degree of wish-fulfillment. He says he can't count the number of "mysterious but unmistakably powerful" figures he has seen wandering around the mansion.

   As especially inventive self-presentation by a MUD player comes from SwampFox, who cleverly re-created some stunning nonverbal cues for her first impression. She used motion, sound, touch, dramatic physical appearance, and eye contact, all in a text-only description that appeared whenever anyone typed "look SwampFox" in the same room. She programmed her character to respond automatically to anyone who "looked" at her with the remark, "SwampFox snarls fiercely and swipes her tail at [your nickname] for looking." With nothing but ASCII characters, SwampFox managed her impression like a virtuoso.