When I was in high school, I kept a diary. A pen and paper diary, that I kept hidden. My little brother found it, and entertained his buddies by reading excerpts from it.
Turns out that more than one woman I know has had a similar experience. My neighbor, for instance.
We, like many, have concerns over privacy and are not entirely trustful with diaristic blogging. I have written before (see Think of your reputation, my dear) that I do guard my personas, depending on what social media platform I am writing.
Having recently finished Dr. Dennen's Constructing academic alter-egos: identiy issues in a blog-based community, I wonder how I might develop another identity, should I continue wandering through the blogosphere.
I might not use my own name, my last name being fairly identifyable. And it would be fun to come up with a new one.
I would definately change the graphic design of my template, but that is more a matter of familiarity with blogging template. And I already have my Bitmoji avatar.
My voice and content? Actually, both are more authentic in my blogs than in my face-to-face "office lady" life. When I shake off the feeling that I should be writing miniature scholarly papers, my voice rings truer here than it often does face-to-face.
I am fortunate that I could take on a pseudoidentity at a later time, but don't think I need to do so. However, to quote Doris Day, "the future's not ours to see."* There may come a time when I wish to blog beyond bounds of professional or even political seemliness. If such a time comes, the norms of pseudoidentify in blog-based communities will have a comforting familiarity.
* The Man Who Knew Too Much, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1956.
It's quite fun and freeing to write under a pseudonym. I've enjoyed it at various times in my life. :)
ReplyDeleteActually, I tried to write using a pseudonym. However, I do not communicate who I am just with the name, surname of whatever it is. I wanted to share my taste of Turkish tea and the value of it for me, for instance. You see another aspect of me and I am the only one that may potentially mention about Turkish tea, right? Just with one textual and visual cue, you anticipated me and voila! You can also validate who I am using my other posts as it is generally difficult to control the fluidity of identity. I am sure that I could guess who you are based on what you like, dislike, share, prefer, etc. :-) Isn't it difficult to embrace our multiple identities in all spaces we go?
ReplyDeleteTo Oliver's point, I imagine if you blog and post in a community where quite a few people know you personally, then they will "bust you" recognizing who you really are, but with the vastness of the Internet, I imagine there is a decent chance that you may be able to blog or live under a pseudonym without "being busted" if you are not closely linked with people who really know you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your blog post made me think of a friend of mine who recently started a podcast for boring bedtime stories that make you fall asleep. All she seriously does is reads boring books with a mellow voice that people find puts them to sleep. She is growing so fast and getting tons of followers and great feedback. To my knowledge, she is not promoting herself as her true self on the podcast, but of course shares the success of her "fake self" with her close friends on Facebook. It is so fascinating how something so minor can pick up so drastically.