Nameless on the Internet
I've lived a double life on the Internet for years. It started off when I was just a child, a 12-year-old trying to find friends that shared my interest. It was a success - I found friends, I found many. Some of them became life-long connections, part of some sort of internet-bound family that has come to form half of my social life.
When I was young I got lectured about online safety at home, in school, on the TV and on the Internet. That's why I created a screen name that I still use to this day, even though it is weird, old and cringey. But over the years the people I became friends with online got to know me on a personal level, and I got to know them as well. It took a long time, sure, but nowadays we know each other's names, home addresses, parents, childhood pets, heck, everything there is to know. And thus, my screen name is no longer anonymous. It has become more like an embarrassing nickname I use with some of my friends. It no longer protects me from the dangers of the Internet as it feels like a piece of my personal identity. Actually, I could start using my first name as my username on social media - there are hundreds of people that share my name, but when your online name is iconic enough, you share it with no-one else. Nobody knows which Jack or Mary you are, but there won't be multiple people who go by TheGreatSparkleRabbit. You get what I mean?
It all, of course, depends on what other personal info you share online. It's true that in this day and age our whole lives are on social media anyway, but I don't really do that. I don't have a personal Instagram where I publish my whereabouts every time I leave my apartment. The only social media I have are connected to my screen name, and those are embarrassing to share because of the name, but it's too late to change that. So, in a way, I'm still anonymous. When I leave a comment as a BananaSplit33, it will be close to impossible to find out my real name. There are no pics of me on my profile nor images of my friends, pets or hometown. There's nothing.
There is, however, a whole other world on the Internet, filled with online comments, drawings, writing, friendship and many other traces left by me, my online identity. Additionally, my friends who know that BananaSplit33 is me, know everything else as well. And there's a whole online town around them, tens, hundreds of people who know who I am through my online friends. And they know my screen name, spesifically. So in the end, I have two different identities in two different contexts, disconnected from each other but both still me, both connected to me. I respond to both names, as they are equally mine. And as neither of them am I truly anonymous.
It was a straightforward decision to start writing this blog anonymously. The goal is to share my thoughts without having to worry about anyone judging me, personally. I didn't want to create another screen name - I have an online identity already, I don't need another one. It would only become a third parallel identity that I'd have to live with. The easiest way would have been to not include a pen name at all. Just write, write as the many others bloggers that write without a name. But if that was the case, would space 4 thought have become my new identity? Would that have become the name I go by? I'm not sure. I'm not familiar enough with blog culture nor myself. But I do know that as I leave my little signature at the end, I remind myself that this here is finally a space where nobody knows who is behind this text. It feels safe and it feels dangerous and exciting, all at the same time.
And I really, really like it.
ᯓ✧ Anon