Pen-Elayne on the Web

Hey Nonny Nonnybloggers

A lot of folks in Blogtopia (y!sctp!) are upset by this unsigned (aka anonymous) swipe in Salon (scroll about halfway down the page) at pseudonymous bloggers, and not just because of the obvious "irony irony" factor. [Update: There's a byline now, all the way at the bottom; the author's name is Christopher Farah. But still.] I've encountered this sort of defensiveness before; in fact, the subject inspired one of the first posts I made on this blog. It was written primarily about message board trolls at the time, but I'm going to quote the portions that I think are also relevant to the current discussion at hand:

Now, the Internet is a powerful force, anyone in the world with online access can potentially read any of our spewings. So I can see where offering dangerous opinions under your real name might intimidate some people (even though I still think if They really want to get you a pseudonymous firewall ain't gonna stop 'em). I can also see the fun of playing around with screen names, just goofing off in IRC or whatever, it's fun to pretend you're someone else, it's like a role-playing bit. So, I have no intrinsic problems with the concept of fake screen names.

It's the application that bothers me... it saddens me how many people register under fake names seemingly for the primary purpose of lobbing cheap shots and insults and nasty insinuations at others. Now, I'm not immune to indulging in this behavior myself (although you'd think I'd outgrown it, but alas, we all have button-pushers), but when that happens, as much as I'm not proud of it, at least I take personal responsibility for acting like an a-hole...

The thing about all these accusations, beyond their inherent rudeness, is that they're meant as authoritative statements, but when you choose to use a pseudonym you willingly give up your claim to authority. And you undermine your credibility every time you don't offer any sort of actual identity when politely asked - particularly when your response is to turn around and attack the credibility or motives of the person asking. A number of pseudonymous [posters] don't seem to understand the difference between someone calmly observing that fake names coupled with insulting words often present an uphill battle on the twin fronts of authority and credibility (certainly not an insurmountable one, but an uphill one nonetheless), and someone mocking them or berating them or talking down to them for their choice to throw shit whilst hiding behind a handle (in other words, engaging in the same behavior of which they're usually guilty)... It's hard not to come to the conclusion that, of the many folks who employ online handles because they're fun and enjoyable, this probably-small subset that uses them in such a cowardly manner feels so highly insulted because deep down they know what they're doing ain't right. I'm just kind of amused that they take the observations so over-the-top personally if they're only, after all, anonymous personae.

I'm a great believer in using one's real name to back up one's real opinion. I used to employ mock pun-names when I did INSIDE JOKE, but that was a comedy zine, and besides pretty much all my readers knew those made-up handles were actually me. Since I've gone online I've never, to my recollection, been pseudononymous. Heck, I even use my real name in chatrooms. So maybe I'm not the best judge of the advantages of pseudonymous posting (even though I did enumerate a few above). It just seems to me that, "Deep Throat" aside, hiding behind a handle - particularly if you use that handle primarily to insult others - often brings with it more aggravation than freedom. Note the bold-faced text - obviously Atrios and the other pseudonymous folks on my blogroll, all of whom I adore or they wouldn't be there in the first place, do a whole lot more than insult people with whom they disagree, and drive-by swipes are hardly their blogs' raison d'être. But at the same time, I think it might behoove some folks to acknowledge that they may indeed face an "uphill battle" in preserving authority and credibility if they cling too tightly to made-up personae.

Update: Via Julia, who isn't pseudonymous at all, World O' Crap exposes the Anonybloggers! It has a number of in-jokes but it still made me smile broadly.