Handles and Anonymity

[womzilla]

In the recent discussions of psuedonyms and anonymity, I haven't seen anyone mention what I think of as one of the best reasons for using a handle: distinction.

There are at least a dozen other Kevin Maroneys in the United States; I bet there are a couple dozen more in County Claire (the ancestral home of the Maroney name). As nearly as I can tell, I'm the only Womzilla anywhere in the world. Thus, when I create a user account at one of the many fragmented pools into which online discussion pours, I just grab womzilla and go with it. It makes it easy for people to recognize me-in-particular, and it's very portable.

That might be obvious, but I haven't seen it discussed, so I'm just tossing it in to the discussion. Nothing to see here; move along.

(I'm continuing to recover from the surgery. I no longer come home completely exhausted every night. Yay my nose.)

ETA: Of course, as soon as I hit "post entry", I see a comment by anton_p_nym that makes much the same point. And correcting some editing errors. Sigh. More tired than I thought.

Comments

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

I have the opposite situation myself: I'm the only Sarah Ovenall in the US, pretty sure I'm the only one in the Western Hemisphere and possibly the only one in the world. (I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least one in the UK though.) I have an ordinary-sounding pseudonym which I use sometimes, just so I can post silly things, geek out on my favorite TV shows, or whatever without worrying that a potential employer (or my parents) will find it someday. The pseudonym is a comedy show character and occasionally people recognize it, but mostly it seems to be accepted as a real name. Which is one of the reasons I find all the angst over pseudonyms a bit foolish -- we assume any name that sounds normal is a real name, but there's no reason to do that, even with people you know in person, if you haven't seen their ID.

Yay for your nose!