and I am so tempted to add the words I’m Spider-Man right now….
So interesting territory time and yes there is a reason behind this posting but I’m gonna have to wait for a while before I talk about it even if it happens.
Lets talk you and I, about the internet and in specific about anonymity on the internet. Let me show you a cartoon, a very famous cartoon by Peter Steiner published in The New Yorker in the early nineties (July 1993 to be exact).
Its a very simple thought. On the net, you really don’t know who is on the other end. I read about 15 blogs these days, out of those 10 I know 6 of the people in question in person. So that leaves 9 people who for one reason or another I choose to read their blogs, something once caught my eye and I keep coming back or in general they interest me. But at the end of the day when I read one of those blogs I could just be reading complete and utter bullshit. For all I know what I read in the blog is all made up and it is not in fact Wil Wheaton writing on WWDN, its some crazy stalker who pulls off a good act.* So what do I know?
The point being that on the internet you can be anyone who you want to be and if you put enough effort into it you can create this entire persona and carry on a life for them. (It’s worth noting that I believe everyone does this in some way on the net, but that is a post for another time). It’s pretty easy to get an email address with a name that you choose, if you try Yahoo, Hotmail or AOL you should be able to get some combination that you can pull off as being your name, get that for instant messaging and you have yourself a new person.
Why would you do that? Well, I can think of several reasons. One of which I may have talked about on and off over the past few months. Privacy. Take this blog, have a look at the url across the top, its pretty clear who is writing this blog. I don’t go out to much effort to hide this but I don’t advertise and I certainly don’t advertise to specific people. I would not really want my parents to be reading this, I know it would involve grief at some stage and I don’t really want people I work with to read this. Having said that I know that a few do and the ones that I know who know about it I don’t mind. Ok, so I have drifted a bit but you get the point. Another side to that would be I want to talk about something that I just don’t want anyone to know came from me. I have a thought or an opinion that you know I’m just not comfortable discussing or letting be attributed to me. Work stuff would be a prime example of that, you know I work for an internet company (yah yah I do) and there are some internet savvy people there, my boss found this through a google, lets say he did and the very first post he saw was a rant about something he had said and what I thought of him.** Things like that have to be born in mind (and yes I’m drifting, just work with me here). So you start your blog on blogspot and you make up some name and you go for it. I know some people who just won’t use their name on the internet. They are not comfortable doing it and you know I understand that and I don’t have a problem with it. I’m happy enough to use mine, I certainly didn’t use to be but then I a) grew up b) realised I didn’t really give a fuck and c) started using it.
However lets say for the benefit of this conversation that I’m a wannabe writer.**** Lets also say that I actually go out and write something and I get to a point where I think it is ready for other people to see, but at the same time I don’t want to post it here because I’m afraid it is really bad and everyone will hate it. So I get another name or blog or whatever and I post it somewhere and ask for opinions. That is a joy of the net right? I don’t have to stand up for my work, I can go and get some feedback and take it from there. It also means my friends are not going to suffer me asking them their opinions.
To sum up:
pseudonym
t noun a fictitious name, especially one used by an author.—ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French pseudonyme, from Greek pseudonymos, from pseudes ‘false’ + onoma ‘name’.
I’ve as usual completly lost track and am unsure what exactly I wanted to cover with all this. But hopefully I’ve not bored you to tears. I found my passport. It took me less than two minutes. I’m gonna go make a phone call.
Notes
* It is Wil, this was just the best example I can think of.
** It’s not happened, he does not know about the top secret blog in which I bitch about him all the time***
*** ah nevermind its not really that funny to begin with. Can you have notes on the notes?
**** I am, but lets be realistic here, wannabe is the word