Pseudonyms: The Catalyst for Misconduct

        The concept of pseudonyms promotes the participants in cyberspace to participate in virtual misconduct.  The construction of identity and the body in a virtual world enables individual to explore and take fantasy and imagination to the extreme. In "Body Language: The Resurrection of the Corpus in Text-Based VR"by Candace Lang Body asserts that the concept of pseudonyms greets the participants in the Moo immediately:

"When you first log on to a MOO, you are assigned a guest alias (or pseudonym), and you find yourself in a virtual architectural space, such as a room or public square. You know where you are because a detailed description of the place reads out on your screen, along with the names of the other characters who are currently "present". (Let me distinguish from the outset between the player, or person sitting in front of the computer screen, and the character she manipulates, who is in the virtual space.)".

              Pseudonyms are a catalyst for virtual misconduct because the participants are able to manipulate their bodies and objects that surround them in the virtual environment.  Lynn Cherney's essay "Objectifying" the Body in the Discourse of an Object-Oriented MUD" asserts the power of pseudonyms through the collaboration of the imagination and narrative that takes place in the MOO environment.:

"identity-shift, even to nonhuman or abstract discourse entities, is commonplace in the course of playful conversation in a MUD. Even in nonplayful conversation, the user is subjected to the split identity of being physical and corporeal at a terminal, and being an entity of code which can be manipulated by herself or other characters. Some manipulations are amusing, part of collaborative fun; others are more sinister, and raise profound questions about the ethics surrounding construction and use of bodies and the identification of the location for agency in interactive spaces. The self is constantly in question and open to redefinition in such an environment, even through the narrow bandwidth of text, and this experience may be exhilarating or terrifying".

  The laws of nature in the MOO are strictly unconstrained and the concept of the pseudonym leaves the door open for mischief and malice:  

"A...character need in no way correspond to a person's real life identity; people can make and remake themselves, choosing their gender and the details of their online presentation; need not even present themselves as human. Of equal significance, LambdaMOO need not be bound by the institutional structures of real life (or, as it is often known within the MOO, RL.). Indeed, LambdaMOO takes to the hilt the notion of reality as a social construction. ( Mnookin)

Pseudonyms demonstrate the power of  language and the imagination.  Cyberspace enables individuals to create and construct the body as " something apart of the true self" ( Hawisher and Selfe 271).  Pseudonyms permits individuals to participate immerse themselves not only in a virtual world be also in acts of misconduct like deceit, violence, and cyber rape.

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