Trying to Manage my IRL/Anonymous Online Presence
In my time time scrolling through the Discovery page, a detail that I sometimes make a mental note of is if someone's blog is under their IRL name. This makes me think about and sometimes question my own relationship with my online presence. For most of my life, that presence has been directly connected to my name. From email addresses, online gaming, and social media (Instagram was my first real online presence and everyone I knew was using their full names, so that's been a major precedent for most of my life). It was an unfamiliar feeling creating an anonymous account for the first time, and it took a while to truly get started (this is probably my second or third attempt at it). I signed up to Bearblog to break out of my comfort zone, let go of a lot of those anxieties, and speak more freely online. Nevertheless, I still have a non-anonymous presence on the internet, and I still burden myself questioning whether I should contribute to one or the other at times:
- If I want to post a picture, which friend group do I want to share that moment with? What are the chances that someone else might see it?
- If I program something under a silly username and profile, how would I share that with potential job prospects? I wouldn't want that name on my resume.
- If I write something personal anonymously, do I have to worry about someone maybe finding out about the account at some point in the future?
I'm probably overthinking a lot of this, and I have a feeling I'll reach an age one day where I won't care as much about these things. For now, I'll just do whatever actually keeps me moving forward in these regards and cross any bridges as they appear.