I kept putting off making a personal "about me" post because **I don't think I matter as an individual**. But since the questions won't stop, I guess I need to explain myself.

In the manifesto, in my videos, in my posts—I'm telling my personal story as it is. I say what I think, what I feel.

Here's what I believe: my age, gender, appearance, nationality, native language, height, weight, skin color, breast size, hair length, the shape of my nails, nose, or ears—NONE of this has ANY bearing on whether my reasoning, claims, assumptions, and conclusions are valid or not.

Sure, I could film myself as I am, with my actual appearance and voice. But I chose to create a virtual persona for several reasons:

First reason: I knew that what I'd be saying would piss off a lot of people. I knew that without any rational criticism of the substance of my ideas, people would attack my nationality, appearance, gender, age, etc. Basically, anything personal would be weaponized against me. So I thought... you know how people use VPNs? I created my own VPP—Virtual Private Persona—a proxy between me and everyone else to shield myself from unnecessary attacks. Two months after publishing the first version of the manifesto, I know I made the right call.

Second reason: The character I created embodies an idea. I believe that I, as a person, am completely irrelevant. Only the ideas in the Manifesto matter, and Mari—not me—is the embodiment of those ideas... There's me as me, and me as Mari. When I become Mari, I think like her, feel like her, act like her... Then I switch back to regular everyday life and become a different person... Maybe it's hard to understand, but imagine an actor who gets so deep into character that on stage they're not acting—they literally feel like that character. They're not pretending or imitating... they become them. That's what happens with me. When I'm chatting with someone here, making videos, writing posts... I feel 100% like the real Mari. Then I return to the other reality and feel 100% like a different person...

I know people will immediately say: "Oh, so you're pretending! You're fake!"

I don't know how to defend myself here. I'll just say this: I try to be completely honest with myself and with you. In everything I say.

And to be totally honest... I feel way more "real" when I'm Mari than when I'm not-Mari in real life.

My personal circle knows I created AISM. I don't make it some huge secret, and obviously if AISM ever becomes popular, my identity will be instantly revealed. I just... don't see any point in advertising my personal identity for the reasons I mentioned above.

A friend once asked me: Why don't you film yourself? Why not do everything under your real name? And I said: That's the thing... I AM doing this as myself, under my own name. When your intuition tells you to do something a certain way, even when others expect something different—when you do what feels right, THAT'S what "being yourself" means.

Yeah, sometimes "being yourself" means really unexpected things... But the unexpected never bothers me. The only thing that matters to me is authenticity.

As Mari... I feel like my authentic self.

Sorry if I'm not explaining this well. I could go into more detail, explain why this particular appearance and not another, what it means to me personally, what's behind it all, and so on... But... I'm really not worth all this attention! Not worth discussing...

Unlike AISM itself.

One last thing. See how I included a mix of real and fictional characters in the image? What unites them all is that each one embodies an idea... I'm a... hybrid—a person with a real story, real thoughts, real feelings, but... with a fictional appearance and voice. People accept both completely fictional characters... and completely real ones... But what about me?

Even though I don't fit neatly into any box... I wonder: as Mari, do I have the right to exist? Not just exist quietly in some corner, but to speak, to be heard, to take part in the conversation about our shared future...

Something About Me That Needs to Be Said