You may be on to something. Creating an online persona would bring escape from every day mundane life, and a radical change to how a person really feels about themselves. If a person is not happy with who he is, he can go and create an online personality, he can pick the age, nationality, everything, since it's a creation, an avatar that has nothing common with the real person, in fact it is likely in many ways opposite of who they really are - old become young, a typical retiree with mundane life, someone who hardly goes outside his flat will become exciting youngster, a world traveller, young yet wise beyond his years, of course, all due to his extraordinary intelligence. I can see how this may fulfill a sad life.
There is a game, Sims, it peaked in popularity in mid 2000s, it gave player opportunity to create an online personality, chose sex, appearance, age, anything.
People who really got into Sims spent more time online, in what for them was "real world", rather than dealing with who they really were, often social rejects, people who had trouble dealing with reality.
Here is outtake from good description what Sims is all about:
"wouldnt it be easier if we all lived in The Sims 3? Since the first game launched in 2000, the human simulation series has been giving gamers the opportunity to indulge their whims, no matter how unrealistic, mundane, or even sadistic they may be (dont pretend youve never stuck a Sim in the pool and took away the ladder). Its that freedom that turns everyday tasks like going to the bathroom and making dinner into fascinating gameplay elements. Of course, The Sims isnt at all like real life - its better.
In The Sims, If you want a career, simply pick up a newspaper or log onto your computer and chose the job of your liking. Professional athlete? Astronaut? Ghost hunter? No problem. Even self-employment is as simple as registering for your preferred trade and collecting a weekly stipend.
Changing your look isnt always easy. Growing out hair for a new style can take months, maybe even years. Dying hair can be tedious and even painful. And then, of course, theres always a chance that you wont like your new style, but thats too bad youre stuck with it. In The Sims, you can change your hair just by looking in a mirror. Make it longer, shorter, non-existent. Dye it bright pink, add green highlights, bleach the tips. Guys, you can even change up your facial hair in a second."
And the main thing - age, and ageing. Online you can substract 50 years, and become 25. Yet keep the wisdom and life experience of a 75 year old.
This is what gives these shapeshifters away at online boards, these attractive youngsters speak like older men. They take on a role of being 25, but they couldn't live with themselves, if they had to play a role of a typical, inexperienced, often dumb 25 year old, they are much too vein to be able pull that off. So they fail every time, everybody who bothers to look can see what these "youngsters" really are.
Sglad made his burden unnecessarily heavy, he made himself decades younger, and he became Singaporean, it would be easier to just pick one, can't fool a board full of English speakers to be Singapourean. At least, refrain from throwing phrases like "friends of Dorothy", obscure expression that 25 yr old North American gay guy wouldn't have a clue about, and something a 25 yr old Asian Sglad would know as much as I would recognise and pick up on very specific inside joke from some Thai TV soap, every Thai would know it, Dutch person would not, ever!