Some of the more observant of you might have noticed that I changed the name on my profile this week. I've been writing this blog since 2005, and since 2005 it's had the name Yankunian on it.
At the time I thought that it was the sensible thing to do. Blogging under an anonymous handle would give me the freedom to write whatever I wanted without having to worry about untidy consequences of either the personal or professional variety. And the freedom to have fun with my writing and maybe be a bit shit but not worry to much about it. Plus, pseudonyms are cool and they make you feel important, like one of the cats in the Federalist Papers.
What happened then was that my blog kind of grew into a whole other thing I wasn't really expecting. I started doing blogging workshops and organising blogmeets and the blog awards and before long everyone knew who wrote The Manchizzle. It has became part of my professional life, for better or worse. So I've decided it's just silly not to put my name on it since it only takes about five seconds to figure out who writes it on google.
If this sounds familiar, maybe it's because I've blogged about this before, but have resisted reading that post for fear of learning how boneachingly repetitive I can be without even trying. There was an interesting discussion around this "should you use real names/how much about your personal life should you divulge on your blog" dilemma that jumped between Emily and Jenn and Max's blogs awhile back, if anyone wants to check it out. Much more of an issue for personal bloggers than us dry informative types but still a toughie that most bloggers have to confront at some point or another. Anyone have any thoughts?
Just don't tell me I've made a huge mistake because there are no do-overs with the internet.
7 comments:
Kate? Oh. My. Goodness.
Then who did I...When were the...Would you...
You've gasted my flabber.
(Only kidding, Hi Kate).
Dr_Whom (Anonymous).
And it's all your fault, doc.
(well, a bit your fault.)
INteresting, given the brief tweet exchange we had. I prefer pseudonymity rather than anonymity on both blog and twitter. No objection people knowing who I am, but I want the freedom to not only be a person connected to work, and therefore not be expected to talk about a single subject.
And sometimes tell off-colour jokes (have you heard abouot the pink flamingo from San Domingo?).
Nonsense. I get blamed for far too much, it's about time everyone found a new scapegoat. Like, that guy! Yeah, pick on that guy! Boo!
Nice.
A few years I ago I discovered that someone I knew had been writing a blog under a psuedenym for ages and I didn't know -- I'd even talked to them with that other name, whole conversations about things and hadn't twigged.
I only found out because they thought I'd already twigged and they decided to confirm it. If they hadn't done that, truly, I would never have known.
Hasn't your name been in the RSS feed for ages anyway?
Oooh, it's a scary one. I stopped writing for a bit after I was 'outed' at the blog awards, then read Emily's posts, had a word with myself, and am back blogging (but it's still semi-anonymous- I'm a coward, and, besides, my other half tells me off every time I divulge yet another argument or TMI-type post...). Good on ya, chuck.
Well done Kate- and generally a huge big well done for all that Manchizzle has brought to Manchester! Thank you!
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