Your real self doesn’t matter if your digital avatar has no power.

Totoo ba ito?

Hi, my name is Dan Ramon Geromo, but some also call me SpiderDan.

I am an advertising creative by profession but I am also a man of many passions. These passions, including my cosplay of mostly superhero and comic book characters, are empowered by the existence of the Internet. It’s very much like having an alter-ego of sorts. Much like the characters I cosplay, I have my own alter-ego, that of mere mortal Dan offline, but I can transform in the Amazing SpiderDan online.

Online, I am able to stalk the corners of where my internet and social media accounts take me.

Come with me as I explore the different facets of You and offer my opinions about what it means to be many things at once.

On one side is your offline, IRL Self. Your real voice, your real attitude and demeanor, your flesh and blood. On the other side is your Online Self, your digital avatar where you have the ability to also speak, to be seen and interact and live a life even though you are just electronic digits and data. This is also the side of you that has powers.

Can one exist without the other? How do you empower one without sacrificing the other?

Since I’m a comic book fan, let’s use a superhero metaphor to discuss these sides, these selves. Your real physical self is your civilian identity, your Clark Kent. Your digital avatar is your super-powered alter-ego, your Superman. I’m using Superman because he’s the more primal, more iconic character and he provides us with better comparisons than from any other character created after him.

Each side tends to differ, personality or otherwise, with each other even though they are supposed to be one and the same.

Your Clark Kent Self

I am assigning the Real Self to the quintessential civilian secret identity: Clark Kent. He is very much a big and important part of the Superman equation. He is your flawed self. This self is the one who needs to wake up in the morning to join the workforce and earn his or her living. The one who toils and struggle among the human race. Here, you try to be good-mannered, or ‘mild-mannered’ if you will. You behave as how one should behave. Here is where you are sometimes clumsy, where you make mistakes, where you are an ignored, boring, bored, normal human being.

This is one side of the coin. Inside of you, there is an entity that can do things your other self, your Clark, can’t. (Cue John Williams fanfare!)

Your Superman Self

By using the Superman metaphor, I am painting a picture of a side of you that exists as a near-perfect individual. Superman is superpowered and is adored by many. Not all of these can be said as true of everyone, but hear me out in this comparison.

Your Online Self is how many people see you nowadays. It’s your voice, your face, your attitude, even your ‘legend’. This is where you show your best self, what I would argue are your true colors.

You have at your fingertips access to the powers of the Internet. Get apps that give you powers and abilities. Google almost anything you want so that you can sound smarter than you really are. Memes are there to give you a sense of humor that you didn’t originally have.

You are able to ‘fly’ ‘anywhere’… or should it be ‘surf’ anywhere’? And with messaging tools, you are able to reach others in no time. Most importantly, you have the ability to be likeable right away, something that your Real Self takes time and effort to achieve. Everyone speaks memes on the internet. Here you can be perfect: you can easily edit everything about you so that you don’t show your imperfections.

Let Me Be Lex Luthor For A Moment

Allow me to be antagonistic here, for this is where my “totoo ba yun?” doubt is coming from. My comparisons above assume that one should need to have a powerful, super, online avatar. That the Real Self is nothing but a weak side of you that should be ignored by the Lois Lanes of the world.

But maybe this is just not true.

The internet is a distraction, and your ‘surfing it’ should be treated as a mere hobby to pass the time. They were able to gamify human interaction and most of us fell for it, thinking you can have an online “life”. Social media creates falseness: a false sense of pride and self-importance. You might think that you are cool. The likes, hearts, views, followers and other points you score in this gamified version of life might even get to your head, making you think that the things you post or show have an impact in society. Newsflash: they don’t. Not all of them at least.

My points above also assume that one should need an Online Self to begin with, which might also be false. Not everyone can afford to have an active online avatar, let alone a thriving one. A lot of people have no time, no access, are not interested in it or it’s not in their personality, and these should be alright. Many of these kinds people are able to live their lives the way they want without needing to have an online presence.

Your Kal-El Self

Kal-El is Superman’s real-real name, the one his biological parents on Krypton gave him. Your Kal-El self should be able to balance both your online and IRL selves. Kal-el is you, whether you are Clark Kent or Superman.

Whether or not this social media thing ever goes away, the fact is, we are now living in a Social Media World. The Internet is now a tool for you to access easily any basic and secondary needs of a human: food, shelter, clothing, news, entertainment.

We live in this world where not many people can ever really stay offline, as a non-Netizen, and only exist in the real world. You can, but one would imagine it to be more of a challenge than if you can access the net.

So for me, the balance should be 70–30, leaning more towards your Real Self. Your Online Self should feed-off from your Real Self, not the other way around. Be real first and let these online tools amplify you. In my case, my hobbies are real, tangible things: my cosplays are done in real cosplay conventions and events, and are amplified online by sharing photos on my social media.

I am writing this article at a time when I am somewhat practicing a “social media diet”. I limit myself to posts that are actually relevant to me. Life events only. I stopped doing vlogs because I can’t help but take a lot of time to edit them after shooting them, which results in eating up hours of my day. I look back at a few times in my life when my social media presence was prominent, but as a result, I am distracted from work and from actually living my life, my IRL life.

Ideally, you should end up somewhere in between. Strike a balance. Your Clark Kent can also be super, and your Superman can sometimes lose power, get tired, and rest. But both should be able to exist as a whole, Kal-El, self.

Also, as I am writing this, I came across this factoid on FB:

Maybe I should’ve used Batman instead.