I started using the Internet very early. But it wasn’t until I was around nine that I really began meeting people online. At school, I was going through a long, exhausting period of bullying. When I tried to seek help, the teachers saw me as a troublemaker — even when I was the one being hurt — and my family thought it was nothing serious. Those two years felt like living in constant fear. I dreaded going to school. I stopped speaking. I thought, maybe it’s really just me against the world.
And then, I found the Internet.
Back in 2007, the online world still felt simple — almost pure. My first online “home” was Baidu Tieba, a forum that was full of fan communities, stories, and endless conversations. It was there that I started writing fanfiction, not as a hobby, but as a form of self-expression and survival. Writing gave me a voice again. Through shared fandoms and fictional worlds, I met other people who felt like outsiders too. We exchanged stories, ideas, emotions — sometimes silly, sometimes painfully real. Even though we were only a series of usernames and profile pictures, the connection felt genuine.
It was ironic that I found friendship online, where no one knew my real name, but not in the classroom, where everyone did. But maybe that’s part of what the Internet allows us to do — to redefine who we are and how we are seen. Offline, I was the quiet kid sitting in the corner. Online, I could be a writer, a friend, a person with something to say. The Internet became a mirror, but also a mask: it reflected what I wanted to be, and sometimes protected me from what I feared being.
Over time, though, the digital landscape changed. Platforms grew bigger, algorithms got smarter, and the line between connection and performance started to blur. What used to be a safe haven for self-expression turned into a space where visibility is currency. Likes, follows, and shares began to measure worth. We no longer simply “play” ourselves — we perform ourselves.
This makes me think of Erving Goffman’s idea of the “presentation of self.” In social life, he said, we constantly perform for others, like actors on a stage. On the Internet, that stage has expanded infinitely. Every post, every comment, every selfie becomes part of our performance — a crafted version of who we want others to see. Yet behind these performances, we are still searching for the same thing I searched for as a child: to be understood, to belong.
Still, I can’t deny what the Internet has given me. It has shaped my identity, my friendships, even my sense of language and creativity. Without it, I might never have discovered writing as a form of healing. I might never have met the people who taught me that kindness can exist even between strangers separated by continents.
The role we play on the Internet, then, is not just about who we pretend to be, but also who we allow ourselves to become. We are constantly negotiating between authenticity and appearance, between vulnerability and protection. Sometimes we hide, sometimes we reveal — and both are valid ways of surviving in the digital world.
When I think back to that nine-year-old version of myself, sitting in front of the computer in silence, I realize that the Internet didn’t just connect me to others — it connected me to a future self I hadn’t yet become.
Maybe that’s the truest role we all play online:
to find pieces of ourselves in others, and to remind one another that even behind the screens, we are all human — still learning how to be seen.
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