alt Hacker NewsI can be a rude prick online sometimes, but I can be in real life too - basically though the reason I do this is I never want it to be some huge surprise IRL if someone sees what I write online and be like, "wow, I didn't know that about him." I'm pretty much what I am online and IRL the same. For some reason this seems to matter for me, at least in the past when people have tried to like, send employers stuff I may have written online. The reaction is like "oh, yea, we knew that already about him."
Nothing terrible, maybe slightly embarrassing, but you know how online spaces can be. just be yourself basically, at least I try to be.
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As someone who gets dopamine hits from downvotes on HN, I approve of your behavior!
>just be yourself basically
Yea, it is boring when everyone is the same. I would like a rude but interesting world (even if I might not survive long in one), than a nice, boring one.
Your framing is interesting. You may feel that you can’t change who you are in real life, but people have a choice on how they behave online (or choose not to engage at all). So you could choose to be nice (or at least not a jerk); I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get people writing to your employer complaining. I’d argue that if you know you’re sometimes a jerk, it’d be less stressful for you and others if you didn’t bring that energy online.