Social experiment I did.
 

I was doing a paper on how people are treated on online forums. I said that people are often treated by the reputation they have built and not by what they write immediately. To test this, me and a buddy swapped accounts on a forum with relaxed rules and didn't pretend to be each other necessarily but didn't tell anyone and just posted as we normally did. People on this online community seemed to like my buddy better, and this was evident that when I tried to strike a conversation up with people, I was called nice terms and people genuinely wanted to help me out, while when I was using my own account, people usually just called me names. But I was posting as I normally did. With that said, I do not recommend such a practice or experiment to people. We knew that it wouldn't harm anything before we overtook it, and we didn't keep it up for long.

Now there is something else you should know. I didn't troll the forum under my own account but my buddy really went out on a limb to communicate on that forum. I had a little under a couple thousand posts on the forum that were mostly a few lines, and he had 5,000 posts on the forum and just about all were actually a page or two long.

Also, no one suspected a thing until we told them later.

I feel bad about doing this experiment now because it seems kind of immature, but you can't change the past, and I think the subject is interesting.

I knew it... you are The Batlord...and The Batlord is you...

Hahahahaha. It was another forum though.

of course it was Scleaves... or should I call you Batlord...

Scleaves, they're onto us! I'll get the batmobile.

What'll really blow your mind is that I'm a ninety year old lady living in Florida. And yes, my dick is still huge.

ahahaha

Yep, it's a psychological fact that people thread each others by their reputations, not by what they actually say. :/ It is brutal but true. Especially the first impression is important, some scientists say that in first 30 seconds the person judges another and the first impression is very hard to change.

I don't find the experiment immature, I think it was rather insightful, though i believe your hypothesis of people being treated based on reputation probably differs from forum to forum.
The main topic of the forum probably is a good basis for this. A forum catering to white hate or violent vulgar things will probably be filled with more low brow people who don't treat others with as much respect as say a forum centered around yoga, or Buhdism or the like.
Of course people of all types can be found on every forum. but i think you understand my point.

When you leave an impression on a person, that tone coats the posts associated with your account. First impressions are just as valid online as in real life. I'm not even remotely surprised.

When did the people on this online community seemed to like your friend better when he was himself or when he was perpetrating himself as you? If it was the latter were you just a tiny bit jealous watching them like you better when you weren't yourself but when your friend was you?

So why were these peoples heaving names at you? Was it because of the reputation your friend built for you when you weren't yourself?

They liked my friend better when he was himself. When I was using my friend's account and posting as I normally do, they treated me better than if I was using my own account.

They called me names because of the reputation that I apparently built for myself, and they did it when I was using my own account.

I recall from another thread you adopted some of your friend's attitudes towards life. Was this reputation built upon you being too blunt? Or was it for other reasons than than that like you saw things and expressed them differently, or you somehow didn't mesh well with certain people on that other forum?

This was actually before the guy I wanted to be like, or at least before I tried to adopt his ways. Part of it seemed to be that the community could be really tough on some people, and part of it might have been that I was more of an emo at the time and he was more of a metalhead, the badarse kind. People might have been afraid of him and more inclined to pick on me. Still though, people had a real respect for who they thought was him and wanted to try to help him out at every turn, while they just gave me garbage.

That kinda works with my Youtube channel. Some douche sent his army of haters on me, and now they're disliking every video, even the neutral ones that aren't actually about him. How can I stop it?

I'm just saying that in general terms, people are going to gravitate towards who or what they feel most familiar with. In life, and online. Assuming you're not Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, real life would be more difficult to emulate.

But online, people can strike up a seeming kinship with you, feel comfortable with you and more or less familiar with you, and they'll more more likely to associate your avatar and username with that kinship than with an "outsider" as it were.

I participate in a wide range of forums and you are correct, no experiment needed. Its all about who was there longer and who is more respected. It is difficult to gauge how a forum feels about you after a short while you have to have been participating for a while and get into it/use to it. Usually the "top dogs" or the more respected members and mods keep an eye on new posts and read a lot from new people and if the first few things you post are not that bright or well accepted a mod or a respected member will make a smart ass/critical comment and from that point the rest of the forums "regulars" will take a quick and immediate dislike to you and make a snap judgment. I am guilty of this as well on a forum I moderate for. It sucks but it happens, and it is easily correctable. Its about how you come off and how you interact with people. The forum community is usually pretty strong and good forums are hard to secure your place in so to speak.