The Digital Me and the Digital You

26 thoughts on The Digital Me and the Digital You

1. I have multiple names. Names for school, blogs, fashion, hobbies… I go by about four or five different names, depending on what I’m doing. Some of the names I go to great lengths to keep seperate.

   The names where I show my picture, I usually don’t post much under those names. I’m just a face in a picture, not really someone to comment on.

2. I too try to maintain multiple separate identities online. I’m usually far more concerned about “real life” people discovering my online life (and having been outed that way once, I can assure you it’s terrifying) than the reverse, but either way I prefer the separation.

   It’s not without drawbacks. There are moments both online and off that I desire to be more open and “whole” in how I present myself, as all of my “identities” are genuine, if varied in detail. A few months before a blogging identity I had was outed by one well-intentioned friend to another past mutual friend, I had an experience where a new acquaintance and I realized that our online lives were just as compatible as our offline ones, and that moment of honesty and personal connection was as thrilling as my outing was horrifying (superficially, it was harmless, except for the total lack of consent and subsequent profound sense of violation on my part, leading to the elimination of that particular identity and all of the ties I had created with it). I would love to have more of the secret wink moments like the former, but the latter was so shocking it fundamentally changed how I interact on the Internet.

3. Before I went through the actual hair cutting process I asked for opinions. Multiple times. Some of you may guess what happened next.

   It is kind of odd that you are surprised that when you solicited opinions, multiple times, that you got some opinions. I have changed my hairstyle many, many times without soliciting opinions and only the closest people to me have voiced any opinion about it.

4. No photos, except on facebook and flickr. The flickr ones don’t involve my face. Facebook is basically public, though I’d delete my account if I didn’t rely on it for party invites. Always use an alias. Anything that you put into the Internet will exist Forever. I’ve had blogs, but they’re always anonymous.

5. I blog under my real name, although I’ve stopped using my f ull name as to prevent my every comment from appearing in Google. Back when I started blogging in 2002, it was mostly very personal. It was the reaction I got from my family, who felt *their* privacy was violated, that got me to quit writing too personal posts by 2007. Still, I used to have every detail of my psychiatric hospitalization online until I edited some posts to delete the most graphic details. Still, you can still tell that I was suicidal in 2007 from my blog.

   As for photos, I have only one photo of myself on my website, which dates from 2003. The reason is that I don’t have any more recent photos that are digitalized.

   I don’t have my personal E-mail address on my blog, but I do have it on my website. The most annoying effect is lots of spam.

6. Yea, I love having a personal blog. For me writing my personal experiences is a part of the blog itself. My blog is about the LIFE at the interesection of third-wave feminism and neopagan witchraft. So I do have to get personal, like with the post “Our Bodies, Our Pleasure.” or the post “Sexual Harrassment.” Yea, for me it’s bit of the opposite. I don’t want my friends seeing the blog because of the personal stuff I put in there, none of them are feminists, so they really don’t understand. I don’t have a bunch of feministers, lol, it’s just me that’s a feminist.

7. I’m fairly transparent. I don’t post my image on my blog, but I have a few on Flickr, though very few of them clearly show my face.

   I’ve been pretty lucky in that I haven’t encounter too many creeps. I did block a man that I “knew” from another board because he couldn’t seem to understand that I didn’t want to meet up with him, and I surely didn’t want anymore than a online friendship. Actually, that was pretty creepy. It was almost like — no, it was like — he was “owed” it.

8. *nods* I have multiple names for different things, too. I try to avoid posting pictures (only with one or two work/hobby groups that are also offline), though. It’s strange how people seem to think that they are under a ‘duty’ to save people from ‘mistakes’ that might make them seem ‘less pretty’. *eyeroll*

9. I’ve tried going by an alias, but it doesn’t work very well for me. I always end up giving people my real name wherever I go for some reason. As a result, I’m probably not as sharing as someone who does have a concrete alias–my general rule of thumb is if my dad would find something questionable, I don’t post it in my blog(s).

   As for cutting hair: mine was down past my shoulder blades when I decided to hack it off. I considered asking people for their opinion, but ultimately decided not to because it was something I wanted to do, so the peanut gallery would just have to get over itself.

10. I am very open about myself on my blog, but being a man probably helps cut down on the negative comments. I suppose some people can’t deal with unflinching honesty, but they don’t leave comments criticizing me, either.

    I think that most people who read my blog have a healthy respect for what I write, but they’re also not inclined to give much in the way of substantive feedback.

11. I blogged through my entire divorce and the grieving process while I dealt with the aftermath of infidelity and then learning to be an independent single mom… and my blog was my lifeline at time. In time, I felt more and more validated my the feedback I got and as my own confidence increased, I felt less self-conscious. I was less careful about keeping the link private.
    It was inevitable that my private space would become more public, and when did, I had to decide what to do. It was hard, but I decided to more all my private content to another blog which is not accessible only to a handful of longtime readers, and I now only post private stuff there. The (now more public) blog has now become a place where I write stuff that doesn’t carry such risk with it, since I can’t know who might be reading it.
    I dislike this separation, though, because it’s so scattered and because it makes me feel like, once again, my private thoughts and concerns are somehow dirty or shameful or hurtful. I don’t like feeling like I have to hide things about my own truth because they would upset others.
    But that’s true about everything to some extent. You must have boundaries to protect yourself, and if I didn’t have the “private” blog, I wouldn’t be able to write my stuff uncensored, which is crucial for me…
    Long answer; sorry.

12. @Samantha You’re totally right. I asked for opinions and I got them. I’m certainly not faultless in this situation, and perhaps I sort of deserved what I got. Lesson totally learned.

13. Joy: perhaps I sort of deserved what I got.

    Yeah, no. You asked for an opinion on getting your hair cut. Typically that does not include strangers expressing their fantasy of running their fingers through your hair. If you got hundreds of comments about how ____ would look nice with the shape of your face or _____ would bring out the color of your eyes…that wouldn’t be so creepy. Or if you got hundreds of comments that a good friend would give: “either would be lovely…what is prompting the change?” that probably wouldn’t have creeped you out either.

    As you say it was the feeling of ownership that bothered you. People feeling like they are entitled to your person is not your fault or your responsibility. They are doing something wrong, not you. You should be able to ask people their opinion on your physical appearance without this sort of response. It may be a nearly inevitable consequence of living a public life…but it is certainly not your fault.

    Perhaps more importantly the only difference in asking the question is that they tell you what they are thinking rather than keeping it to themselves.

14. Ah, a problem near & dear to my heart. Since my website-blog is supposed to be promoting my stuff, obviously I post under my real name. I did not want people doing searches and tracking my comments all over the web, so I post to sites like feministe under a pseudonym.

    I don’t have pictures of me on my site. All household members go by pseudonyms. I’ve repeatedly asked people, particularly family members, who seem to be the most egregious in brushing off my concerns, never, never never to post labelled photos of me online.

    But as the making light post I recently read suggests, it’s probably a lost cause, particularly the `multiple identities’ method. It’s the same principle as `secret’ encryption is good security, and that, as Bruce Schneier has discussed in relentless detail, sucks rocks.

    Finding stuff in the making-light archives can be a bit of a bear, so here’s a truncated url:

    nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012517.html

    As for facebook, I’m getting ready to shut that down completely, even on the very limited level I do it. Can’t wait for diaspora. But ultimately? David Brin is probably right, and we’re going back to the everybody knows everything about you model of a small town.

    With no escape to the wider world, unless you’ve got lots of money to sheathe yourself.

15. Wait, is asking for opinions really the same as asking for the specific type of opinions that treated Joy like personal property whose obligation was to please male on-lookers? She’s not allowed to criticize the way she was treated because, what, apparently she asked for it?

    I mean, from the post: “These people seemed to feel some sort of ownership in my appearance. To be crude, their e-mails felt like stockholders who had misgivings about design changes in a new line of products.” How is that an appropriate response to, “Hey, guys, I was thinking about cutting my hair. Thoughts?”

    Seriously? Victim-blaming? WTF.

16. I’m certainly not faultless in this situation, and perhaps I sort of deserved what I got.

    I’m going to agree with Jadey & Kristen J.–you definitely didn’t “deserve what you got.” Just because you’ve chosen to share your life with strangers doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have some common decency and realize they don’t own you because they read your blog.

17. Jadey and Kristen J for the win!

    I use different screennames depending on what I’m doing, but not necessarily different personas. To those of you with different names – do you develop different personas as well? I feel like there’s something entirely freeing about the concept.

18. Separate names, separate blogs, and a definite love for the “delete” button are a must when you get personal online.

    No one has the right to be pervy or gross or rude on your personal blog. Your blog is literally your business (like a store, not in the figurative sense), so just like a store can say, “no shirt, no shoes, no service”, you too can set up parameters on how people may act on your blog. Delete often if you need to, and don’t feel bad about it!

19. Agreeing with Jadey and Kristen J here. If I asked “hey, thinking of cutting my hair, any thoughts?” I’d be expecting fashion advice, not ‘here, have a detailed fantasy of me running my hands through your hair.’ I mean, CREEPY.

    I have two online identities – one that’s essentially just Facebook (although I hardly use that and am thinking of deleting it entirely) and is my RL identity, one that’s ‘everything else.’ I *used* to have another, because I started out online in fandom and when I started getting involved in social justice stuff online I didn’t want those two to be the same… but since I actually got into social justice via fandom it became too complicated to keep the distinction and I ended up giving up.

    I am very careful to keep the identities separate, which is difficult because I do tend to share a lot of personal information online – personal meaning things like my sexuality and that I ID as disabled (both of which IRL I’ve only told to my closest friends, although when it comes to sexuality that’s more because I really don’t know how to bring it up), not location or pictures. Have totally separate e-mail addresses these days. I think the reason I’m so cautious about it is that I *am* in fandom, writing fanfic is a legal grey area and I don’t want to do anything to hurt my career chances. Also, in RL I really want to be able to pick whom I tell I’m autistic, because that has stigma and weird assumptions attached to it and I often really don’t want to deal with it. *sigh* The advantage of being online is that if someone starts getting weird about it, you can cut them off, or at least try. They’re not your family, your colleagues, your boss…

20. I’ve got three primary online identities: my Feminist Blog Frequenter handle, my Videogame Forum Frequenter handle, and the real me (a bit of a misnomer, as I’m genuine under all names, but this uses my actual name) on Facebook. I take great pains to make sure none of these or my more minor identities intersect. Hell, I have a separate e-mail for each one.

    I never, ever upload pictures of myself. There are some on Facebook uploaded by friends, but as I only connect with people on there who I’m actually friends with and I have everything set so only they can see my profile, it doesn’t worry me too much. The odds of some stalker realizing I exist, taking an interest in me, and going through contrived channels to find out what I look like and where I am are incredibly slim.

21. On the one hand, I’m a very open person and an artist (my name is my brand). On the other hand, some people have no compunctions about rooting around the internet until they learn everything about you. So, to protect myself from “Nice Guys” and employers, I have an internet persona that is connected to public spaces, another one that is for forums and blogging, and yet another one that is exclusively for cosplay.

    About the hair, fie on them! You asked for objective opinions, not the deranged objectification of the masses. News flash to menfolk: you DO NOT own women’s hair and they DO NOT owe you long locks. (This part of your tale royally riles me up right now due to a very similar Hair Saga of my own. Apparently it was okay for him to shave his head even though I adored his long hair, but once I got a very cute pixie cut he “wasn’t attracted to [me] anymore.” Bullshit.)

22. Unfortunately, what she ran into is “being female on the Internet,” again.

    This kind of thing is why I try to keep a low profile online for the most part. You have to search for my e-mail address, my first name is practically “Jane Doe” anyway, I refuse to do TrackBacks or check hits or any of the usual traffic-getting crap. I got enough of this crap when I got online, thanks.

23. Real name, no pictures. I’ve been tempted. I might “resolve” this by adding a page away from my blog per se, showing pics from different times of my life, and linking to it in my About page, for people who really want to know. I suspect most won’t care. If they do it creates a wee bit of extra work.

24. There really isn’t any difference between my online and offline personas. I’m transparent. It has its drawbacks. Douchebags have been known to stalk me, just because they can. I know that I will be held responsible for every post and comment. But working as a journalist, for me, already means an erosion between my private life and public life – to a degree. And that’s besides all of the personal writing I do. I feel that I can relate to people through it a whole lot more, because my real name is up there.

25. Your internet experience with changing your appearance sounds exactly like my offline experience changing my hair 4 years ago. I’d worn my hair very long through my teen years and college. At 22 I decided I was ready for a change, and I talked to my mom and one of her coworkers (“Jan”, who is a family friend) about what style I might choose.

    A few days later I met my mom and some of her work friends for happy hour and Jan asked me if I’d decided what style to go with. The men with us freaked out. I got a lot of the comments you got, Joy – “I know women who’ve gut their hair and regretted it later”, “You can’t cut your hair, I love it” and (most disturbingly) “You are your hair, it’s your trademark!” Now, these are men who’ve I’ve known quite a while, but they aren’t my and I only see them a few times a year. They are all 15-25 years older than me and at 22 I still thought of them as “grown-ups” and myself as “not really a grown-up”.

    The experience was really enlightening and scary for me. For the first time I felt like there was something sexual in these relationships that I’d thought were anything but. They were older men, my mom’s friends and I was her kid. Suddenly having a beer with them felt sinister. What were they thinking when they saw me? Were they thinking it last year? Were they thinking it when they saw my prom pictures 4 years ago? When I was 15? How long had I been a woman with sexy hair to them? How did I not notice before? Who else was thinking of me this way?

    Ultimately, I told them off. My mom was a little surprised but didn’t disagree. I said something along the lines of not having asked for their opinion and not caring if they thought short hair was attractive or not. I told them I wasn’t interested in dating any of them and really, I wasn’t interested in dating anyone who cared that much about my hair.

26. Lurker checking in! Part of the reason I’m primarily a lurker is that I hatehatehateHATE the sort of forced intimacy the Internet can put you through. I use one handle, but I never give out my personal information. I’m vague about everything else, even when I was keeping a blog. My spouse put up a Facebook page for me; I promptly took it down. I request my friends and family do NOT put pictures of me on Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/tumblr/flickr wherever. My job is the kind where I don’t want my personal rambling associated with my career, and where they can be damaging to my future.

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