I think the difference is that I usually don't notice usernames, unless I want to check if the same person wrote two comments. In this sense, they are just opaque identifiers, or a trivial identity that doesn't express anything in itself. An online identity is something more, because it usually comes with a personality, an image, a history. To me it isn't even that something is being hidden, rather that a lesser version of oneself (merely virtual) is being overvalued. This argument could be extended to people who might base their online Instagram/TikTok/etc. persona on that of their real life, but glorify it beyond recognition, while at the same time reducing its being to digital communication.
I don't think it's right to say that an online identity is lesser. In many ways "easrng" is more real, more me than my irl identity, because online expression is easier for me. I can craft and change representations of all that I am, in ways that I can't really offline (without significant amounts of time, energy, and potentially money.) I don't know if this is a young/old divide or a neurodivergent/neurotypical divide or a trans/cis divide or what, but I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
To me, it seems lesser because online communication is inherently lesser to real life communication. It always appears as a restricted emulation of of "the real thing". Even now, you don't know my tone, you don't see my body language, what I emphasise, etc. I started writing this sentence, then rephrase it because it didn't sound good. I cannot hide this when speaking face-to-face.
Again, to me "easrng" means nothing. When starting to read your comment I had no idea what perspective you were coming from, if you were about to agree with me or not. All I know about you are the 99 words you have written in this comment.
Setting aside scams, if you meet someone online, when you get along well and become friends, would you reject the opportunity to meet them in real life instead of communicating virtually? I think most people would take that opportunity. I guess I am still young, and I think that most people my are inclined to agree with me -- especially after the lockdowns.
But what you say is interesting: When I hear "I can craft and change representations of all that I am", I hear someone saying that they can make up a fake persona, instead of being the person they actually and inherently are. An online persona starts blank, just like I have no image of you before our first message. Even the most generic person has something that makes them ever so different from most other people, that they cannot deny.
On the contrary, I think that anonymity makes people more honest, because they don't have to fear the repercussions of saying something that either a real person or an online persona. They both have to hide, while the lack of an identity makes you free.
It's not an emulation, it's just different. As for not being able to convey tone? skill issue. You can do it, emojis help, formatting helps, even with plain text you can repeat punctuation or AlTeRnAtE cAsEs or whatever, that's without even getting in to 1337speak style typing quirks (there's more than just replacing E with 3). I frequently rewrite messages before sending, but I do that irl too, I just say corrections out loud which is harder for the person listening to track than if I just had an textfield to compose what I wanted to say. As for usernames, they don't mean anything, they're just pointers to the people who use them. You say I can make up a "fake" persona, but what does fake even mean? Why does it matter if who I am online isn't a 1-to-1 copy of my irl self? They're both reflections of my personality, and that's what matters. And psuedoanonymity isn't the same as anonymity. I have an online identity, I have people who know me by it, and I wouldn't want to just throw all those connections away. If I said something fucked up, I would presumably lose my friends and such, and sure I could make a new identity but making a new identity and forming new relationships isn't a trivial thing to do. Just because you can't see my body doesn't make my identity any less real imo.
