יום שישי, פברואר 24, 2006

Time to move on?

I'll have to give it some thought but I may move on. Over the past 3 months it's been creeping up on me that I'm losing my anonymity. I rather liked having it. I made one silly mistake and one person "found" me. I posted a few comments and a few more did. I submitted an article to a carnival and it may be all over. I think I have to decide between changing my style to reflect that people know it's me writing this or moving house.

I was closed off enough that one person linked to me and couldn't tell if I was a woman or a man. Good! I liked that. No-one knew where I lived. Great! I'll have to give it some thought. On the upside is that I now have "readers". I'm not sure I want to become a grand-high-blogger.
Hmmm.... Thoughts?

UPDATE:
The reason I care if people know who I am. Good question.
I use my blog to ask questions of myself and anyone else who wants to listen in. Anonymity allows me to ask those questions without people answering based on who I am.
For example:
  • Where do I live? Someone who knows where I live might pre-judge my political views.

  • How do I dress? Long sleeves or short? My religiosity is assumed by that.

  • Am I a man or a woman? My views on sexuality and relationships.

You get the picture. It also allows me to tell stories and ask questions that I could not voice in person.

5 Comments:

At 11:38 לפנה״צ, Blogger Babka said...

Its a strange and scary world out here. Got any blue and red pills?

 
At 1:59 אחה״צ, Blogger Anne Rettenberg LCSW said...

It's a mystery to me why you care whether people know who you are.

It's not like you've been advocating overthrowing the government on this blog.

I took the red pill a while back.

 
At 10:40 לפנה״צ, Blogger Anne Rettenberg LCSW said...

You've already made your political views clear.

 
At 11:18 לפנה״צ, Blogger Anne Rettenberg LCSW said...

Oh, btw: You'd asked me about where I got the info on Hebron. A friend of mine visited the area last month and one of her travel companions has info as well as photos and commentary from the whole trip:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/yoramgel/ffippdelegation/1133632800/tpod.html

 
At 1:29 אחה״צ, Blogger Ezzie said...

That people who know you read your blog would not threaten your anonymity; it does however require one to rethink saying things they possibly should not. Personally, I've never found my lack of anonymity to be a problem; I still feel completely free to say whatever I wish, and it keeps me from saying foolish or hurtful things. I do however recognize the need or wish for many to remain anonymous, and actually posted months back about why revealing someone's identity would be a terrible and cruel thing to do.

People will judge your views based on your views - and while some will pre-judge based on any of the examples you gave, there are two answers to that: 1) Many of those people will pre-judge anyway, based on the tone of your posts or some part of the content. 2) Those do play a factor in what your views are, and therefore will play a role in how your views are shaped. This leads to a better understanding of your views anyway.

You're more anonymous than you think, however. Even if someone knows who you are, and even if others know that someone knows who you are, it will not allow them any further insight than they were already getting. I've actually met a number of anonymous bloggers (and some who weren't) - if anything, it allowed me to further understand them where otherwise I may have pre-judged them. This is not actually contradictory to the first part of this paragraph (think about it).

Anyways... it's one of the dilemmas every blogger faces at some point. Unless someone has a lot to lose and someone is trying to "out" them (possibly the most 'evil' thing one can do to a blogger), most bloggers remain in the blogging world even if a few people know who they are. But ultimately, everyone has their own comfort level.

 

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