I've used primarily one pseudonym and its nickname (that's right, my pseudonym is so old it has a nickname) online for nearly 25 years. For perspective, Zuckerberg was six years old when Rain Mist first started making political commentary. It's a concrete enough legacy that I've used the nickname when I felt like I needed some level of anonymity for my pseudonym. It's a name that carries greater chance of online recognition, and greater attachment online, than my actual legal name.
This idea that a username isn't "real"? Is a noob concept. Back when we were logging into local bbses on black screened dumb terminals with green text, a username served to provide a bit of adjectorial info on the user. It provided extra context in lieu of, say, facial features, to what would otherwise be a jumble of nonsense syllables in an era when one's last name has no connection to one's profession. Your user name was a tidy bit of bespoke when making first impressions; it was part of our assertion that, regardless of how our parents had named us and society might categorize us and stereotype us as geeks, back when geeking was uncool, online we owned every piece of our identity.
I was real named on Facebook by some nasty little (anonymous, just roll around in that hypocrisy) troll, for who knows what reason. I refuse to surrender my identity for this decade's social network, because it is replaceable, has competitors, and, with its current appeal being largely to much older users, seems likely to be approaching the end of its lifespan. My user name? Non-negotiable.
Entertainingly, when I got on G+ as an early/ beta adopter, I did it with a professional name and my username. I also sent a long explanation to their feedback system regarding my use of a legacy name, because, while Facebook is trivial to me and seems likely to wane eventually, Google has far more weight and durability; life would get uncomfortable without them. They never replied....but they also made no moves against what remains my primary account. Last year they dropped the "real name" requirement entirely. And they've always done a great job of allowing compartmentalization, so your political comments can stay tidily within a target circle.
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Re: Chilling effects of forced identification
I've used primarily one pseudonym and its nickname (that's right, my pseudonym is so old it has a nickname) online for nearly 25 years. For perspective, Zuckerberg was six years old when Rain Mist first started making political commentary. It's a concrete enough legacy that I've used the nickname when I felt like I needed some level of anonymity for my pseudonym. It's a name that carries greater chance of online recognition, and greater attachment online, than my actual legal name.
This idea that a username isn't "real"? Is a noob concept. Back when we were logging into local bbses on black screened dumb terminals with green text, a username served to provide a bit of adjectorial info on the user. It provided extra context in lieu of, say, facial features, to what would otherwise be a jumble of nonsense syllables in an era when one's last name has no connection to one's profession. Your user name was a tidy bit of bespoke when making first impressions; it was part of our assertion that, regardless of how our parents had named us and society might categorize us and stereotype us as geeks, back when geeking was uncool, online we owned every piece of our identity.
I was real named on Facebook by some nasty little (anonymous, just roll around in that hypocrisy) troll, for who knows what reason. I refuse to surrender my identity for this decade's social network, because it is replaceable, has competitors, and, with its current appeal being largely to much older users, seems likely to be approaching the end of its lifespan. My user name? Non-negotiable.
Entertainingly, when I got on G+ as an early/ beta adopter, I did it with a professional name and my username. I also sent a long explanation to their feedback system regarding my use of a legacy name, because, while Facebook is trivial to me and seems likely to wane eventually, Google has far more weight and durability; life would get uncomfortable without them. They never replied....but they also made no moves against what remains my primary account. Last year they dropped the "real name" requirement entirely. And they've always done a great job of allowing compartmentalization, so your political comments can stay tidily within a target circle.