Every few months
I hit a skid with this blog where I feel — wrung out. I’m feeling wrung out. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been quite so forthcoming in the past and wish I could do it over again with a lot less identifying information. I didn’t know blogging would become ubiquitous the way it has. I thought it would always be small and obscure and somehow less out there. I know — naive because it was always out there.
If I had it to do over again, you would not know our real names. I used to be unable to understand anonymous bloggers but lately I’ve been wishing I was one.
What about you? Are you comfortable with your level of disclosure or would you have done things differently now that you’re already here?
I am glad to be anonymous. My situation is specific enough (preschool teacher in park slope with a Chinese daughter etc.) that I’m sure I can be identified, but I am glad that it’s still a question mark. I love reading blogs that are not anonymous, but I also feel a little voyeuristic sometimes.
I just wrote an entry about this. I’ve been on the internet a decade now and I have never lied about who I was, where I live or my family. Even by omission. That’s just not me. I have used faked names, or just an inital of a name, to protect others in my life but that is the extent of it.
Currently I am fine with the level of disclosure. I hope that I have protected others, while still allowing myself to be honest about who I am and the journey I am on.
I go through and “draft” any posts that I think might make anyone uncomfortable in after a week or so. I know they could still be out there in a different form. Anyone who knew me who stumbled across my blog would know it was me. I write catalogs and newsletters and such for work. Plus I am quite often the MC for events around town. People who don’t know me, know my style and voice. I had 2 too many cosmos at St.Pat’s party Friday night and told a friend about my blog. Pony and Bert were both trying to stop me. It’s okay I know she would never tell anyone, and she doesn’t know my url. My kids know about my blog, Bert, my mom, my aunt and uncle, two of my best friends, and my daughter’s birth mom and grandma. I still feel anonymous though. I like that I can be out there and still feel completely under the radar.
It does freak me out when I see how high I come up on search engines for Lisa sometimes, and especially Lisa V.
It’s an interesting philosophical question: to blog anonymously or not. When I started blogging, I decided to try (in general) to not use anyone’s real name, and not use real place names for current activities. This was influenced by a question of privacy for my dotter and by the fact that there are some real kooks out there.
But, anyone who really wants to can figure out where we are; it’s not that difficult if you know the area.
I blog anonymously - and don’t use my kids’ or husband’s or dog’s names or, in pictures, their faces. Well, I have put up a picture of our dog’s face, but she’s so gorgeous I know she won’t mind…For me, the single most important thing is not exploiting anyone, including myself, in my blog. The anonymity helps with that.
I started out anonymous, and have stayed that way. I don’t feel like I can be honest if I don’t - it’s not just safety or protecting my family’s privacy, it’s that being open about my identity comporimes my voice as a writer. Only one of my SIl reads my blog, and I give DH an occasional post to read, and even that affects my writing. Of course,the anonymity is it’s own compromise - I don’t get to communicate with people I know in person, and I don’t get to write as openly about the place I live, local politics, etc. I think this is a very interesting topic. I’m sure some cultural studies major somewhere is disecting it. I’m just glad that both kinds of blogs exist in various forms. Another interesting question: why do local blogs bore me so? Why does being local make it less interesting to me? I honestly don’t know.
I just blogged about this, too — and mentioned you as someone I envy because your work and blogging topics intersect, making it (in my eyes, anyway) easier for you to blog with your real name. I made the decision to be anonymous without much thought, in part because there are so many examples of journalists getting fired because of their blogs. That doesn’t really concern me too much — I stay away from blogging much about work — but I *do* worry a bit about how personal my blog is; I wouldn’t want something in my personal life to dissuade an editor (who otherwise wouldn’t have known about it) from giving me work.
I started with an anon name but used my husband’s and son’s names. It seems a double-standard now, but I think I did it because it seemed to be the norm.
When things went to hell in a handbasket with the in-laws, I felt it was best to protect everyone, not just me. I, however, have no qualms with sharing my name via emails with fellow bloggers, but I’ll be the first to admit that I Google names. Yep, shameless.
This is very timely for me. After a couple of years reading some great blogs, I just recently started my own. So far, it is quite boring cause I haven’t quite found my comfort zone but, I do know I will never be comfortable posting photos of my kids faces. I have used only initials to identify them but have wondered what the harm would be in using just first names.
You are one of my favorites. Thank for posting this; now I will stick with the initials.
I use my real name, and anyone who wants to can probably figure out where I live. For myself, I don’t believe people on the internet are a greater threat than people in real life. You can’t stop people in real life from “seeing” your children either, or knowing their names, etc. And there just might be that one kook amongst them, with much easier access to them than the average internet person. But we can’t live life in constant fear, can we?
That said, I’d probably never go so far as plaster my life all over the internet dooce-style. It makes for great reading, but it is a trifle voyeuristic, as others have said. And I couldn’t deal with the inevitable hate mail about, well, everything. Skin not thick enough.
One arguement for staying anon is being able to blog about your “real” life more openly without hurting feelings of real life family&friends, especially if it includes negative emotions. So I guess everybody has to do whatever works for them.
I’m not very good at maintaining my blog — in fact, I hesitate to call it that at all! — and frequently tear down all the posts because I hate feeling so *exposed.*
That said, I wish I could be different: I’d like to be better at sharing, at detailing my life, at keeping scrupulous notes. I feel things slipping away and wish I had a better record. I fantasize, sometimes, about starting fresh with a new identity and building a new blog from scratch.
I’m not very good at maintaining my blog — in fact, I hesitate to call it that at all! — and frequently tear down all the posts because I hate feeling so *exposed.*
That said, I wish I could be different: I’d like to be better at sharing, at detailing my life, at keeping scrupulous notes. I feel things slipping away and wish I had a better record. I fantasize, sometimes, about starting fresh with a new identity and building a new blog from scratch.