pseudonymity

[piranha]

noodling set off by coffee_and_ink's poll.

my online pseudos are more "real" than the name given to me at birth -- i picked them for myself, and they say important things about me, while my "real" name does no such thing. there are mainly two, because sometimes the first one is taken. they're part of what i consider my real name; the set of names which represent me and to which i listen. i really like having a variety of names that convey meaning; now and then a new one becomes part of the gestalt as which i see myself. my legal name i dislike, and some day i'll jettison it with relish.

i've been reading people's reasons for choosing pseudonyms, and some really common reasons aren't true for me at all, so here's on those first:

i am utterly unafraid of anyone googling for juicy information who knows me -- most people who know me well know my pseudos anyway. that was even true when i still worked for "the man"; my bosses knew. i also don't say anything online that i wouldn't say to somebody's face. that sounds as if i were very careful online, when the fact of the matter is that i am rude straightforward and direct in person as well as online; people usually don't wonder whether i like them or not. and there is no juicy information to find that i am not out about. if i want to keep something secret, i don't post about it, *snicker*.

i am also not worried about stalkers (a problem i consider to be over-hyped), and i'll be damned if i let online arseholes drive me into hiding. i try to abstain from feeding trolls, and i come down like a ton of bricks on somebody who shows repeated disrespect of my boundaries. that seems to work very well, even though i have had a high-profile online presence and don't shy away from controversial subjects.

however, i am a strong proponent of data privacy. my data is mine, mine, all mine. it does not belong to safeway, the postal service, the INS, any government, or any corporation who might want to make $$ off it. i am the one who owns my names, and information about myself. using a pseudo underlines that. i am under no obligation to give random people my "real" name (they are the ones who're obsessed with its "reality", not i, so i use it to shtup their noses in it).

last, but not least, what goes for me, goes for others. i don't live life in a vaccuum, i interact with other people. and while i am careful not to tell others' stories for them, in the grey zone where we interact the stories belong to me too. so i will disguise third parties i mention in my writing, and that together with me using a pseudo gives them two degrees of privacy from random googlers searching for info on them.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I don't seem to have the gene for privacy ... about much of anything. I completely understand why others do, and support their right to disclose or withhold whatever information they please. But me ... at various times I've put my address, my phone number and the directions to my house out there for the world to see. The government and big business already know everything there is to know about me, so it's a little late to try to cover those trails. And I don't see how the effort would benefit me at this late date.

My nom de 'Net, here as practically everywhere else on line, is my surname and first initial, the username assigned to me for my very first Internet account. I use it pretty much everywhere, because it's easy for me to remember and because, frankly, I want people to be able to find me if they have a reason to. (Like you, I can hand a troll or a stalker his/her head on a plate, so I've had next to no problems on that account in over a dozen years on line.)

I'll confess to a mild wish that others would at least be consistent from forum to forum; it's taken me forever to match some of my friends LJ usernames with the handles by which I know them elsenet (and the ones who constantly change their userpics confuse me, too.) But that has more to do with my (in)ability to retain multiple identifiers for people than anything else, and it's basically my problem.

username consistency

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, i concur with the wish that others be consistent with handles, *heh*, though -- believing a dozen contradictory things before breakfast -- i also appreciate the acquisition of more names, since hey, i share that desire. and i get a real kick out of seeing such different aspects of people on their LJs than i'd gotten elsenet, and naming themselves is part of that. however, i find that i tend to distrust people who change their handle in one and the same online venue frequently -- that wreaks havoc with any continuity of individual presence, and plays into the stereotypes about avoiding accountability. though at least on LJ one can maintain the continuity by keeping connections when renaming, which is something usenet doesn't afford.

i don't so much mind people using different user icons, but it drives me batty when people share user icons. that is just WRONG! i can keep track of a set per person, but if people mix them up, then the pattern matcher throws up his hands and stalks out of the room.

the sociology of all this is fascinating.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I haven't used identical names everywhere, but I've pretty much used variants of my legal name everywhere (Janet, JanetM, janetmiles, jdmiles). I haven't ever had any significant problems from it. I do have several userpics, but I rarely use them (I don't have a default, for example). I'm pretty open about where I live and work, what I do, and who I hang out with.

On the other hand, I use pseudonyms for other people in my life, because their situations are different from mine, and if some of their interests became associated with their public names, they could encounter excessive unpleasantness.

I do not wish to minimize the experiences of others who have had problems; I know I've been lucky. (My inner voices are suggesting that it's simply that I'm not particularly interesting; my inner voices need to eat food and get their blood sugar back up to useful levels.)

[jenett]

Very thought-inducing comments.

I use a pseudonym online for a couple of reasons. For quite a while there, my last name was entirely uncommon enough that searching on it, and knowing my vague location (East coast or Midwest) was enough to find my home address.

And I have known enough people with odd stalkers (more from the gaming communities I've been in, and to some extent the Pagan community) to figure it was worth being slightly careful. There was also quite a while when my family of origin also didn't know much about it, and the last name's rare enough that they'd have found it quick if I'd used it.

For me, it's also about - especially the religious and relationship stuff - wanting to be able to present those things to someone in my life in a way I have some control over. I haven't wanted to worry they might do a search, and find something out of context by accident - using a pseudonym helps avoid that.

(And, at this point, I'm quite grateful of that: I know for certain that one of the students in my school is on one of the Pagan related mailing lists I'm on, and that's something I don't really want students finding out about me on a casual search. And that's a different relationship than me and co-workers, or me and boss.)

I do also definitely agree with your last point: by using a pseudonym, I back off a level on connective privacy. That's no big deal in the places I want to keep the connection (I use Jenett broadly in Pagan settings offline, too, largely because I really don't answer well to Jennifer anymore: it's way too common a name)

Re: pseudonymity

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

For me, it's also about - especially the religious and relationship stuff - wanting to be able to present those things to someone in my life in a way I have some control over.

*nod*. yes, this is a large part of what i call "wanting to tell one's own stories".

[snippy]

I've been stalked from one Usenet group to another. I've even received a phone call at my home from someone on a Usenet group who I was fighting with. I've had two different people from two different Usenet groups read my LJ only in order to attack me repeatedly in the comments. (Not attack my arguments, mind you: personal attacks.) And those people's friends have defended them to me, minimizing their behavior and its effects on me!

When I was barely legal I was stalked (followed around in person, secretly) by a former boyfriend for a few months, after I refused to resume the relationship.

Being stalked is not something I enjoy, and it is a high cost to pay for participating in community.

[snippy]

Oh yeah, and I just remembered the guy who read something I wrote on an LJ community and then friended my journal so he could attack me in the comments.

Do I attract oddballs, or what?

friending just to comment

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i think this one has something to do with how some people view livejournals -- as long as something isn't f-locked, there are those who seem to think it's just like a newsgroup or a webforum; fair game. one would think that he'd clue in to the fact that he couldn't just leave a comment as a random drive-by-commenter, but not everyone has finely tuned social antennae. and it's not like the social rules of LJ are crystal clear either, so maybe it's not surprising that people are confused.

did he at least scoot when you pointed out to him that this was unwelcome? i am generally somewhat forgiving of people making a faux pas, and don't form a lasting negative impression unless they refuse to learn.

Re: friending just to comment

[snippy]

I don't think friending a person to comment on what is said elsewhere (meatspace, elseNet, whathaveyou) is polite, nor is it ethical. Changing venues is just wrong, in my opinion. He actually wrote that he friended me to try to figure out why I was so weird in the other venue! And wouldn't run away until banned (which isn't really running away).

Re: friending just to comment

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

hm. i don't think i see the lines similarly to you, though i do believe that it's impolite not to go away when asked to leave somebody's LJ. gotta think some more about it -- but in general i think how a change of venue is done matters more to me than that it is done.

"stalking"

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

Do I attract oddballs, or what?

your experience seems to be comparable with mine. but i don't call most of that "stalking", and it does in no way induce me to change my name and hide from such people (which an actual meatspace stalker might do). it just seems to me the normal price of dealing with a wide variety of other people when one has strong opinions and doesn't hold back in discussing them. and it's true online and offline -- and you know? i prefer online. offline the viciousness of some people often doesn't express itself to my face, but instead goes underground in the form of spreading nasty lies, and that's harder to handle. online i can jump down the throat of anyone who behaves like a shithead -- and if they do it right in the open, so much the better, then everyone can see what they're made of. this is why i have a policy of publishing abusive email as well.

i've been in the firing line of some net.kooks due to being active in news.groups and group advice, but i can't say that i've ever even cared by that time. i've learned that engaging as little as possible with kooks is the way to go, and if engagement is necessary, that it be unfailingly short and courteous, no matter what the provocation. IME most kooks and trolls will leave one alone after a while if one doesn't react. the really hardened cases (of which news.groups gets more than most other groups) will not go away, but i believe that i've avoided possible meatspace interactions by not egging them on and maintaining a calm demeanour no matter what. i learned some really good lessons on PLATO and in ss{m}. maybe the most useful skill was to learn identifying somebody as a kook or troll fairly soon (which is not to say that my labelling makes them any such thing, just that it's helped me avoid engaging past a certain point of no return).

the one instance among those you describe i'd call "stalking" would be the former boyfriend. *ugh*. that's scary. i've had a stalker who came from the US to europe to profess zir undying love for me (no, we didn't have an online romance; zie had made all that up from whole cloth), and that person worried me for a while because zie was very clearly emotionally disturbed.

not to say that there are not bona fide internet stalkers, but what many people now call "internet stalking" simply doesn't fall into the scary category for me, and i think the evidence bears out that it's not the same.

woops

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i just realised that maybe my last comment also had the effect of making you feel that i was minimising your experience. i merely got hung up on the terminology and the scare factor, and went from there. sorry!

i find it extremely rude, mind you, to follow somebody around from one venue to another solely to attack zir. i think it's totally out of line to take an online disagreement into meatspace (i remember when somebody did that to steve cheney, and i was extremely upset that "one of us" could act that way; it soured me permanently on a whole group of people who all didn't seem to think that there had been anything wrong with that).

Re: woops

[snippy]

No, I didn't feel like you minimized the experience. I just have a broader definition of stalking than you do; not everything that I put in that category is especially traumatic, just annoying. But I think because of the strict stalking I experienced (the ex-boyfriend), I'm more sensitive to identity issues than I would have been without it. For example, I eat at a lot of places where you give them your name to call out when your order is ready, and I always give a false name, because I don't like hearing my name called out across a crowded room. (Even now that I've changed it.)

[firecat]

I use a 'pseudonym' on LJ because my user name of choice was taken. Elsewhere online I use my first name only. I've always preferred using my first name only and if I didn't mind going through the bureaucratic hassles that the OH has to go through I'd probably have only one name like him.

To a small degree, using a single name makes it slightly more difficult to find me online and an advantage is that it protects coworkers and relatives from finding out stuff about me without trying. If they want to go looking, that's fine, but I want it to be their choice.

Once I used a pseudonym on some local mailing lists to ask for advice on behalf of a friend. The pseudonym was to protect her identity. I liked the pseudonym I came up with so I kept it and registered it here and there, but so far I haven't found another use for it that stuck.

I occasionally use an alternative journal to post in snark communities because I want to say snarky things without their being attributable to me. It's not that I haven't said such things in public before, though, so it's hard to explain why I prefer to use the other journal.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

What you said!

Now that piglet can be claimed (new LJ rule that lets you take over deleted journals, or so I am told), I've been idly pondering whether or not I should switch. I kind of like porcinea by now. It's ... femmer. Or something.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Oops! So much for that. (piglet appears reactivated. Or something. Phew, now I don't have to decide.)

[lcohen]

and then there's the earworm it gives me....

[lcohen]

i don't use a pseudonym really--not because i'm not private but because i wasn't expecting to use the journal the way i turned out to use it. but then i don't have a pseudonym on usenet, either. but i really think it's that when i got into these things i didn't think them through at all and by the time it had occurred to me, people knew me anyway.

if that sounds haphazard--well it was. but i do lock and filter my journal now, for what that's worth.