pretendime

Pretendime is a term used in online discourse to describe the practice of adopting a pretend identity or persona within a narrative, game, or social interaction. It functions as a blend of pretend and me, signaling a self-identified fictional or speculative iteration of the self. The term appears across fan communities, role-playing forums, and creative writing contexts to distinguish engaged, performative personas from the user’s everyday identity.

Origin and usage: The coinage likely emerged from informal online language that combines pretend with a personal reference, with variations such as pretendime persona or pretendime identity. It is not associated with a standardized framework, and its meaning can vary by community. In practice, a pretendime may be a character in a story, a roleplayed audience surrogate, or a hypothetical version of the real person used for exploring ideas, ethical questions, or narrative experiments.

Characteristics: Key features include explicit fictional framing, consent among participants in shared role-play, and a boundary between pretendime content and the user’s real-world identity. Some creators use pretendimes to test perspectives, experiment with voice and style, or explore alternate histories or hypothetical scenarios.

See also: role-playing, alternate reality game, cosplay, fan fiction, alter ego, digital identity.

Notes: This entry describes a contemporary informal term rather than a standardized or officially codified concept.