This is one of those really sticky issues...not so much with someone like Rance, because you can just read his blog and it doesn't really matter if it is real or not. I tend to wonder if that is because he's a man...or because he's talking about what's going on in his life, but it's not the intimate type of sharing that I tend to see more often in women's blogs and journals. I'm mostly a reader of these blogs and rarely do I interact with the creator, but I get sucked into their stories...their infertility, adoptions, infidelity of their spouse, etc.

It's hard for me to really understand how people can misrepresent themselves online because I don't do it myself...or do I? I don't use my real name...it's close and if I get to know you well, I'll tell you my name, but I quit using my real name because I didn't much like what showed up on my Google search.

I think that's what separates the potential misrepresentation of Rance from the real betrayal of something like the Kaycee Nicole saga...

Hmm. You could be right. I know there's a qualitative difference in how people interacted with Kaycee and how they interact with someone like Rance, who, by the nature of his site, keeps people at arm's length.

Personally, it just seems like too much work to create a new persona for my online self. Easier to talk about my life than to make up a life. Also more rewarding.

I agree...there's no way I could do all that work to make up a life! I get tired just thinking about it, and anyway, my whole reason for blogging is to talk about my life...the one I'm living.

Have you seen Karen Hall's blog? It's been interesting to see someone who's "known" in LA blogging as herself and being pretty open about stuff that's happening in the business, although I've noticed that anything that's very open stays up for about a day and then gets deleted...