> In my 2015 book The Four-Dimensional Human, I describe a failed promise of the 1990s Internet: that it would free us from our earthly identities and let us mo

> In my 2015 book The Four-Dimensional Human, I describe a failed promise of the 1990s Internet: that it would free us from our earthly identities and let us move like quicksilver through cyberspace, inhabiting all kinds of experimental selves in gaudy, rackety chat rooms. Instead, our online movements got pinned with thumbnail avatars of our real-world faces; we solidified in the heat of the personal brand. We developed what I called “chain-store selves” as we spread ourselves across the Internet with the trademarked consistency of a franchise. Who is "us", who is "we" here? I certainly don't post my real face on the internet, and don't develop a "personal brand" there. Those "us" and "we" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in the article, turning a sentiment felt by the author into some kind of universal truth.