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" [When asked about the dangers of Internet trolls being able to say whatever they want because of false profiles]
What interests me (if you ask me) in phenomenon – not only Facebook, but generally, this, let's call them 'staged identities' [...] – is how there can be more truth in the mask that you adopt than in your real, inner self. I always believed in masks; I never believed in the emancipatory potential of this gesture of 'let's tear off the masks.' [...] Let me give you a simple example. Let us say that I'm in reality a shy, impotent, stupid person, afraid...but then, in Internet reaction, I adopt a screen persona of a brutal, racist guy who humiliates people, beats women and so on...It's too easy to say, 'Oh, I'm really a coward, but there I imagined to be a powerful macho.' What if it's the opposite? What if I really am that brutal guy – but in real life, because of social pressure and so on, I oppress it...so that the true mask is my authentic, real self? And the truth comes out precisely in the guise of a fiction. "

Slavoj Žižek


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Slavoj Žižek quote : <i>[When asked about the dangers of Internet trolls being able to say whatever they want because of false profiles]</i><br />What interests me (if you ask me) in phenomenon – not only Facebook, but generally, this, let's call them 'staged identities' [...] – is how there can be more truth in the mask that you adopt than in your real, inner self. I always believed in masks; I never believed in the emancipatory potential of this gesture of 'let's tear off the masks.' [...] Let me give you a simple example. Let us say that I'm in reality a shy, impotent, stupid person, afraid...but then, in Internet reaction, I adopt a screen persona of a brutal, racist guy who humiliates people, beats women and so on...It's too easy to say, 'Oh, I'm really a coward, but there I imagined to be a powerful macho.' What if it's the opposite? What if I really am that brutal guy – but in real life, because of social pressure and so on, I oppress it...so that the true mask is my authentic, real self? And <b>the truth comes out</b> precisely in the guise of a fiction.