Ask HN: Being comfortable using your “real life persona” online | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Being comfortable using your “real life persona” online

4 pointsWxc2jjJmST9XWWL4 comments

I've had many usernames over the years ; be it IRC, HN, Reddit, various boards, trackers, but what I nearly never used was a real name or something that could be linked to me in person.

I'm trying to do more under a real identity. It would be nice to make more long lasting connections with people, and maybe build a long lasting identity, and standing by one's own opinions. With a real name.

But how to decide what to share under a real name? I can't comment on HN without being wary about it. A comment history of years is so telling about an individual. How do you ever get "comfortable" with having a lot of stuff online that can somehow be linked to the real you? Is it just me, or do other people deal with this as well?

Not even asking this under a real name: What if a potential employer/future colleague finds this in the future, and must conclude "this guy is _really_ unsure about himself"? What if it tanks and I just get slashed for asking something silly? The internet doesn't forget, throwaways I can at least throw away, that's what they're there for. But I can never "network" simply moving from one anonymous nick unto the next.

Suggestions? Am I justified, or simply paranoid?

I am doing the same journey - even getting a blog under my real name - and it can be unsettling as someone who early on learned that you never ever give away personal information, let alone use your real name, online.

Just blogging has eased some of my worries. Once I did the actual work and realize that the real issue that no one cares let alone reads my stuff, I stopped caring so much. Also, it helped to role-play how I would react if people "confronted" me about something I've written (my texts are so tame that it wouldn't be an issue).

It just seems to create a huge vulnerability. It can be such a reveal. Show me someone's HN, Reddit and some other stuff they've been using, and the profile I can assemble from these comments... you might as well just scream your secrets out into the world? And the technological means to link, gather and analyze such data will only improve.

And cancel culture, political correctness, they won't be gone soon. At least not from the looks of it. Something I write today under a real name could bite me in 10 years and get me fired? Don't get me wrong, I'm not some fascist nut who wants to write his racist blog, but I've triggered some people immensely merely stating what I considered simple facts in a calm manner...

Against a women's quota? Chauvinist pig.

Against enforcing gender neutral language? Privileged white middle class gender-binary male hanging onto his power (whatever that is)!

Against minimum wage? Of course you must be, neo-fascist shark!

Stating gender differences are in part biological rather than socially constructed? You're not an expert of gender studies, how do you know, you inconsiderate unfeeling cold-hearted ... you get the picture.

I can be free for a while under a moniker, until it seems to reveal too much and I ditch it. I can never state opinions freely under a real name, and don't know how some journalists and bloggers do it. Guess they have more confidence.

I think the worry is totally understandable. A few points:

a "stable" identity doesn't have to be based on your real name - plenty deep connections online are between people that do not know their real identities, or only learn them later. Although of course you are right, if you share too much detail it can be possible for people to figure out, and it depends how much you need to worry about that.

I find linking across identities awkward: I.e. I can't really refer to a conversation on HN on my blog without linking the two. In a way, lots of throwaways would make that easier, since there wouldn't be as much as a profile linked to.

I believe everyone with a larger profile under a real identity or one at risk of being linked should explicitly consider what they are willing to reveal and what remains in other accounts. But it also can be explicit choosing to explicitly talk about things that people could figure out anyways.

I ditch every user name eventually, and have only a selected few who I will stay in contact with. Building an online long term identify in and of itself just seems dangerous and revealing. That's why when I created this account for example, I didn't even care about the name. It will be gone eventually as well.

But it's frustrating, and one wonders what connections one could have made without this modus operandus.

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