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

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I guess there's a certain something to that, for some folks. For me, strangely, it doesn't come up much.