The point of alters?

A few years ago I outed longtime pea AN as having a rather mean alter Kaitlyn(random numbers I can’t recall).
She seemed to be using her regular pea name to ask questions and receive pea advice about home renovations as she had bought her own home.
Her alter was used to rail against MLMs and be mean to specific peas (often the very same peas who were answering her questions as AN)
I assume she did it so she didn’t get a reputation of being a bitch.

It is a bit odd to create an alter - it means you must value your place/reputation here or perhaps value what you get from the board on some level while recognising that peas would feel differently about you if they knew your stance on certain things.
I guess there might be occasions when someone just sees it as fun to stir the pot but why would you do that if you didn’t actually have those controversial thoughts?

I remember that one. I actually saw AN post as her alter by mistake. muggins wasn't the only one who saw that. I remember being really surprised, because the alter was super mean and not at all like AN's usual posts.

Those outings usually happen because the person logs into the wrong account when they're answering a question or a quote as their alter. I've seen it happen a couple times.

Cowardice.

I imagine their established account is linked to an actual person that several peas know in some way. As in they know their name, have them on their FB list, follow them on IG, know where they work, that sort of thing.

Why not say hateful things, spread lies, and basically be a horrible person anonymously than risk having it blow back onto their real lives? People have been fired for this kind of stuff because it gets back to their employer. Plus they get to keep the persona they've created under the "established" username.

There are a lot of people who can't take an objective look at themselves, even when something troubling is pointed out to them. I have found that if I simply step back and reconsider, I can at the very least get to a place of understanding and then apologize accordingly. In human relationships, I think that getting to a place of understanding is the key. Sometimes compromise is impossible and sometimes agreement is impossible. You don't have to change your mind. But understanding where the other side (or your partner or friend) is coming from is the key. Many political posters don't seek to have that kind of understanding. They are so sure they are right, they refuse to see the other side of an argument (and I'm not talking about issues where there are clearly injustices going on). And there are some who want to be able to speak without consequence. They don't care about understanding either. They just want to drop their opinion and go on with their life. I think that last one stems from frustration.

I'm guessing that's where the post in question came from. There was an opinion that the poster could rightly see that was going to be met with resistance. They were not looking to understand the other side. They were just looking for a place to drop their bomb and go on about their life and they wanted to do it without consequence. They want to distance themselves from the opposition and not be responsible for having to think through the resulting opposing posts. They want to be able to share an opinion without having to put in any effort to defend it.

I agree with this. I'm very disappointed that someone I've scrapbooked with on numerous occasions and has shown a genuine interest in me and my kids would do such a thing. And then when figured out would not explain and apologize. These kinds of things always make me feel like I've been duped by someone.

I agree with elaine.

Using an alter for an extremely personal or potentially embarrassing post is understandable.

Using an alter to be a bitch is not acceptable. It violates the sanctity of our ‘family’ here. I find it especially egregious when a long time pea like AN does it. Not to mention the existence of that slam blog years ago. That was ugly.

And I have no idea who or what this latest alter issue is even about. If it’s political, I’d likely miss it because I avoid those pointless diatribes here like the plague.

Some people don’t have the courage to own and defend their convictions, so they create an alter to do their talking for them. Pretty sad, given this is an anonymous forum. 

I think I used an alter a few times for personal reasons I didn't want the subject to be linked to me.. I don't even remember what it could have been it's been so many years ago.

But to be mean or troll around, that is just weird and rude. 

I was just wondering why the alter on the Jeopardy thread.... I totally missed the mark on that one.  Someone started the thread about how awesome the current winner is but deleted their account and then another person brought it back to the top just a random congrats post and all of it makes no sense to me.  (if anyone cares to explain what happened there) lol

Usually all you have to do is look at the post history of the alt, to see why one was needed.

The latest one was no exception to that.

When talking politics, I think some people create alters to back themselves up, some create them to be more inflammatory than want to be under their "real" name - they don't want to be ostracized from the community, and some create them because they know they have history that is inconsistent with what they're saying now and they don't want to admit/explain that. For example, I'm pretty sure we had "I don't support Trump" R peas who vocally did support him under alters.

I remember AN.  Didn’t she have a mother that pea’d?