Personalities Online and Offline

Is the presentation of self and the online persona the same? Or do you pretend to be someone else? Does it make you into that person?

As much as we try to consider the two the same, the presentation of ourselves and our online selves is not quite parallel.  In all fairness people want to be perceived in a certain way and through online media, people are finally able to construct themselves how they want the public to perceive them.  You can be anybody you want to be online which empowers people, giving them a chance for their thoughts and opinions to be heard.  This can sometimes differ from how they are offline.  I do not think people are necessarily pretending to be someone else, but theres a difference between writing your opinion online about a specific issue in the public sphere and standing up and speaking out to a different kind of public.  People use social media to hide their insecurities while displaying their positive features and ideas.  No one posts online 'for themselves' because that defeats the purpose, we post online so other people will notice and consider what we have to say, so obviously what we say is targeting what we think people want to read.  We all want the option to be the best versions of ourselves and through online social media, I think people strive to show the world that version.  Although it may seem that we 'become' the people we are online, I still believe it is the other way around.  We are who we are but through social media, we are able to display ourselves and our lives exactly how we want the public to perceive us.  Our online selves are the sugar coated version we want everyone to remember.