Well, the experiment is finally finished. Allow me to explain.
For five years now, I've been conducting an experiment of sorts. Consider it a kind of field study in Sociology. The question was, could a relatively normal woman masquerade successfully on-line as a guy for five years, and fool all of the people all of the time? The answer, as I suppose is obvious to you now, is yes. The "Phoenix Dark" that has been presented to you for the last few years does not exist, save in my head.
In April of 2002 I thought up the idea. At the time I was taking both sociology and psychology in high school. Specifically, in sociology, we were studying differences in gender and race, with "Black Like Me" used as one of our sources for attempting to understand the ideas that fomented at the basis of racism. I started observing how the males in the class behaved in contrast to both myself and other females in the school, and decided that while I couldn't exactly do what John Howard Griffin had done and cross-dress my way through life, I could do something similar on-line. Could I, an 18-year old female, convince the rest of the world that I was, in fact, a man?
I told my Sociology teacher about the idea for such an experiment and she was intrigued by the idea. I told her I'd try it out for the remainder of the school year (two months at that point) and report my findings to her at the end of the semester, along with copies of chat logs and other events to show how I had gone about portraying myself in this other persona.
The two months went by much faster than I thought, but at the end of the school year, I collected all my information together and was able to turn in an 8-page report and give a four minute speech to the rest of the class concerning my findings; at this time I also revealed to my classmates that "PhoenixDark", guy whom had been talking to them on-line during that period, was in fact myself. Without fail, I had managed to convince everyone I had come into contact with on-line that I was male. I received an A+ on both the report and presentation.
After class, my Sociology teacher asked me to stay afterwards. She told me this kind of thing was exactly what people in the real world do when they attempt to learn about another kind of society: they do their best to become those they wish to study; this of course is referred to as ethnography. She couldn't assign it to me, obviously, as I would be graduating from high school, but she asked me to consider continuing the charade. Two months of such a deception is relatively easy to maintain, after all. But what about a full year? Two years? Five? Was it possible to carry out such an experiment for so long? And if so, what would the result be?
I decided over the course of the summer that I would see how long I could go, and after three years I would look back and correlate all the information I had kept to see what all it was possible to learn from such an undertaking. As it turns out, I kept it going for another two years, simply because I was having too much fun and was learning more and more and more.
Five years, however, is long enough. So the lie ends tonight.
For those of you who feel I have violated your trust, I realize apologies are in order. You have been lied to, misled, and misinformed every step of the way. I don't expect you to understand why this was done now, but it is my hope that in a few years' time, you will understand why it was necessary for me to proceed. I've learned an amazing amount of information over the last decade, and I hope the academic world will be interested in reading it an analyzing it. Names and faces will be changed to protect the innocent, of course, so don't worry. Your personal lives will always remain yours alone.
In January, I queried such publications as Psychology Today with the question of whether or not they would be interested in reading the results of this personal undertaking. To date, I have received three replies, all from reputable journals, stating that they would be very interested in articles describing this journey I took. I suspect that they will begin to appear no later than June or July; it will take some time to collect my notes and work out just how to approach such an article or series of articles.
I wanted to thank you all for participating (albeit unknowingly) in this study. What I have learned is utterly invaluable and may one day prove as insightful to readers as "Black Like Me" was when it was first published in 1964.
Most of you will have words for me. You might feel hurt and angry. I understand all of it, and in some ways, I deserve every negative emotion you will heap on me. I considered this very, very hard before I came to this choice to end the charade. A lie always hurts worse than the truth the longer the lie is perpetuated. I think ten years is enough, and it is time for the mask to come off. I prayed a lot about this, and I hope you will be willing to forgive me. Until then I would like to go through with the meeting with Cheebs (Jacob) this week, if he still wants to. While some of you may feel "hurt", I would anticipate that most of you will feel that this is nothing more than a joke. Meeting Cheebs this week will be the first step in proving that this is indeed real. Until then I hope we can have a constructive discussion about this situation, and not jump to crude conclusions until I provide the rest of my information.
Gaia bless.
Michelle
