Ok, one thing I have to get out there first is I can’t; absolutely CAN’T think “sock puppet”, see a sock puppet or see any of that “one guy’s” sock puppet monkey lookin art without thinking of our current president.   It’s not a political thing, I don’t think it’s a racial thing; it’s a “kid said a really funny thing” thing. 

We were at the mall, in a kid’s clothing store and there was a t-shirt with that one guy’s sock puppet monkey lookin art printed on it.  Our oldest walked by and said (loud enough to get everyone’s attention) “Look, an Obama Shirt!”.  It was a genuine observation made by a kid, and it cracked me the hell UP!  - Ok, that’s out – here we go.

In the Lexicon of Me, a “Sock Puppet” account is any account on a social networking site where your true identity isn’t revealed.  It gives you the freedom to say what you want, explorer new frontiers and make friends with people you’d normally never meet in “real life” or with your “legitimate” account.

@dogup is my “legitimate” twitter name.  Anyone can follow along, I don’t care.  Hell’s bells, my mother-in-law, several former pastors, (they are still pastors, our church rotates them through churches) some other real life friends, and a couple of work acquaintances follow. (I have some stranger followers too.  Not strange people, but the relationship is most certainly strange!)  Maybe more on that sometime soon… No biggie.  I also have a sock puppet account. 

That account gives me the freedom to say what the fuck I want when the fuck I want to whom the fuck I want.  And, strangely enough, most of the tweets from that account sound a lot like that last sentence.  That account has its own email Gmail address not attached to anything in “real life” so unless the goddamn government subpoenas the information from Google, I can choose to be relatively anonymous if I choose to be.  There are a few, a very few, ok, like 4 people that I’ve met there that I’ve shared “real life” information with and they have shed some light on, and provided an angle I would not have otherwise received.  Thanks ya’ll!

There are also some real life folk I know that follow BOTH.  That’s when it get’s hinky.  I went out the other night with some real life Tweeps and they wanted to know who was going to show up.  @dogup, or the other guy.  I told them that hopefully it would be a combination of the two.  It was.  Because a combination of the two (+ a few more) is the “real” me.  I’m unique…just like everyone else. 

Anohter Tweep I know has a sock puppet account (ok, there are several, but I’m thinking of ONE in particular).  In the early days of “the sock”, he put two and two together and figured out who was who.  That was a nice reality check, and I had to further separate the two.  That’s not hard to do.  I just have to adjust the ID, Ego and Super Ego levels on each account.  Easy!  Not a damn problem.