Something of the bloggers block is afflicting me. I’ve spent the last few days blaming my tools which while a cop out does have a grain of truth. I should really write a post about it, but I’ve got bloggers block.
So, something frivolous to try and dislodge the lexical colon.
Is the opposite of pseudonymous “onymous”? If it isn’t then fuckit, it is now, at least for the duration of this post. For I can suspend the rules of the language at will, such is my power.
There are two sorts of internet naming systems that I have identified. The pseudonymous and the onymous.
Jane Doe goes for the pseudonymous. Her Hotmail account is “bunnyflop56″, her Flickr account is “piccywikky” and her LiveJournal is “doomclanger”. On top of this her Flickr screen name is “Fly Like A Donkey” and while on LJ she displays as “What Now, Mr Fish”.
While I theoretically love Jane to pieces and think her work is of top rate, she fucking pisses me off because I am onymous. if I can’t use peteashton I try my droid name (it’s a long story) peteash10 or other variations that reasonably identify me as me. Screen names are always Pete Ashton.
To be honest, it’s not the pseudonym that annoys me so much as the variation, so maybe there should be two categories, the consistent pseudonymous and the rampant pseudonymous. Consistents are cool because their real name becomes irrelevant making them de facto onymous. The rampants are the problem.
Why? Because they’re so bloody hard to keep track of, especially if I know them in the real world by their given name. For example, I discover Jane has an LJ, either because she told me or I figured it out (the latter can take months and I’m sure there are loads of my pre-web friends out there whose comments I’ve read but never connected). So I subscribe to her feed in my feed reader. A few days later a post pops up from “What Now, Mr Fish” and I have no idea who it’s from because I don’t keep a handy cheat sheet stuck to my monitor. To make matters worse, after a few weeks Jane gets bored with this witticism and changes it to “I Am Lord Of Cheese” or something and I’m completely bamboozled.
So please, if you’re going to use a silly name, and I accept there are good reasons for doing so, be consistent about it.
I usually stick to two pseudonyms – ‘planetcutie’ (website title – long story) and ‘Lec CRP1′ (another long story, used for my motor racing subsidaries). I used to have many more in my Creatures chatroom days. So many, even I haven’t remembered them all and am suprisied if I discover them again…
I AM LORD OF CHEESE !
A point well made. Speaking as a member of the third category (onopseudymous perhaps?) I can honestly say that I firmly intend to stick with my chosen moniker for as long as I realistically can. This is mostly, it must be said, because having a variety of different names must surely be confusing.
I’m me.
Or snowgoon.
Simple.
Like me.
Hang on….
De Facto onymous. So much so that being unable to access my right name can often stop me using a service altogether.
Actually, maybe I’m bionymous, as I habitually use either my full real name or my short online name.
However, there are secret identities. If you stumbled across my OKCupid profile, for example, you’d probably be able to guess it was me, but you wouldn’t, because it’s in the wrong name.
Hee. And here’s me with a pseudonym or two…
Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve linked to your post over at my blog.
http://rullsenbergrules.blogspot.com/2005/09/pete-ashton-on-multi-pseudonyms.html
Pseudonymous here, but only in real life.
Only differs when my fingers can’t keep up with my mind, or the other way around. But then I can’t argue both sides.
A quick google suggests autonymous as the antonym of pseudonymous, though it isn’t listed in my Concise Oxford. Interestingly (or not) there is a faction on a newsgroup I read who berate those posting pseudonymously, who figght back by asking how do you know that a seemingly real name is, in fact, pukka…
Here, play games with this:
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?num=100&hl=en&filter=0&q=Birmingham&btnG=Search+Blogs
It’s sure to inspire.
I’m yer local rampantonymous. Go ahead, be anoid. I like not knowing who I am, and the concomitant lack of accuntability. It’s a challenge to be a bunch of characters. You would know that, perhaps even identify with it.
Long live the CHEESE :)
The pseudonym thing seems to be a reaction to the fact that if you sign up for any global service, eg flickr, your real name was acquisitioned many moons ago.
I have tried to be consistent with smithylad over the years, except when it applies to making music, where I seem to be crawfish (still not happy with that name), but when I signed up for Skype, smithylad had already gone. How did that happen? Who on earth would want to call themselves smithylad beside me? It’s moronic. I had to go for the_real_smithylad. I ought to phone whoever has snappled the Skype smithylad moniker and ask them what they are playing at.
It’s just struck me that perhaps, like in the early days of the web, there are people and organisations deliberately signing up millions of names to Skype, lifted from web addresses, email addresses etc, for the purpose of at some point selling them on and making some money.
Yahoo (setup of) have collaborated with me on no end of problems.
My Blog/LJ names tend to represent were I’m at in any given 2-3 yr period. I wonder thats maybe a consequence of having moved home very often.
AnDrew