I was having dinner with a couple of friends about a month ago, when they stopped to inquire as to how my Life Experiment was going (more on this soon). Somehow our discussion turned to the discrepancy that frequently occurs between a person’s online and offline personas. Not in the sensationalist, News At Eleven phenomenon of dirty old men masquerading as minors in chat rooms, but more surprisingly, People Who Are Smarter Online Than They Are Offline. I have to admit I was initially skeptical of this claim (How could that be?), but my friend insisted that not only does this happen, it actually occurs with more frequency than one would expect. He cited a number of instances in which he’s been disappointed to discover that some people are simply better in HTML than they are in the flesh. As I was trying to wrap my head around this phenomenon, I suddenly remembered.

Actors.

How many times have we fallen in love with a character from a film or television, only to discover that the actor is actually ________ (insert loathsome superlative here)? How can Robert Downey Jr. play such a nuanced and poetic Charlie Chaplin and be a Republican? How could Isaiah Washington embody the impassioned cardiothoracic surgeon Preston Burke and be homophobic in reality? How can complete idiots convincingly transform themselves into brilliant savants?

To some extent, we’re all accustomed to the flip side: smart friends who don’t necessarily come across as such online. And since our online personas are most typically expressed through writing, be it long-form blogs, status updates, or Tweets, our choices around language seem to warrant deeper investigation.

I have to admit I’m somewhat of a fascist where it concerns English—proper punctuation and grammar count for a lot with me. I avoid text message/net lingo like the plague, preferring complete words to abbreviations or acronyms—you won’t find me ROFLMAO, FCOL. And while I’m not above a bit of self-flagellation when I discover a misplaced comma or a misspelling in my own work, I’m fine with friends who choose to engage with language in a shorthand-ish way—be it motivated by efficiency, a lack of fingertip dexterity, or a genuine desire to sound like a 14 year old. It’s their prerogative—they could write a proper thesis that would make The Chicago Manual of Style proud—they just choose not to in their everyday exchanges.

So lately, I’ve started to wonder whether my purview is too narrow, whether my staunch refusal to engage in a more plastic use of language has imposed limits on my range. Am I the greying soap opera actor who’s destined to play the same role for the next 30 years to others’ versatile entertainer, able to conquer film, television, theater, with a clothing line and an album in the works? While I was initially relieved to hear that my online and offline voice are one and the same, maybe it isn’t such a good thing after all. There may be comfort in authenticity, but it sure as hell doesn’t sell tickets.

Thank God the Internet’s free.