Anonymity Is Fun 🤷♀️
So I recently made some changes to the design1 and cleaned up the tags. While doing that I started wondering if I should legitimize this place a bit more. You know, make it proper, "make it nice." Maybe add an "about" page or a mission statement that clearly illustrates the purpose of the blog and why it exists and who's behind it. Because clearly I haven't done that, treating this place less like a blog and more like a public dumping ground for shower thoughts and existential angst.
I guess the reason for that is because I always worried that if I didn't keep this blog anonymous, it would become like the rest of my online identity - corporate. I hate how social media has turned the Internet into one big LinkedIn profile. With a professional headshot alongside insightful musings about the industry or whatever. Sharing that Medium article you wrote or that Malcolm Gladwell book you read. Have you read Atomic Habits??? There are entire chunks of the internet that just feel like a neverending all-hands meeting that someone forgot to end.
I've always been a little old school when it comes to the Internet. When I first started using it, you never told anyone your full government name. Instead, I told everyone my name was Amanda Whitman, I was 28, and I had a glamorous life in LA (when actually I was 12).
It was freeing to write about whatever I wanted and have it be this completely separate thing to whatever I was doing in the real world. I wish people today respected that boundary, but they don't. They now demand complete transparency, especially of writers. I feel deeply sorry for every colleague who has to tap dance on Twitter all day. They hate it there.
If your blog's identity is attached to your own, it can create complications. For example, if you become known for being the person who writes about programming, are you obligated to only write about programming since that's what's expected of you? Would visitors be turned off if instead of writing about programming you decided to write about Russian death metal? Because hey, what if you like Russian death metal too and you always had a weird fixation on it? Is there space for that, or will that creep out your prospective employers?
Anonymity is freedom, and honestly, as a writer, it's way more fun to write this way. So even though this blog isn't really...anything, I'm perfectly OK with that. Because it sure beats the online theater of social media.