I haven’t use my real name or correct personal information (aside from email address, which is only identifiable as my alter ego, Seej) in any online forum for close to a decade now because I appreciate that there’s people out there who I’d rather didn’t know who I am. I’m a high-school teacher and I don’t think it’s appropriate that kids should see me swearing and generally behaving like a juvenile idiot on my silly little blog aimed at my equally daft friends, but neither do I think that I shouldn’t be able to behave like that in my private life. Besides, at what point does my self-created online identity become more valid than my real-life one? Certainly more people know me as Seej than they do by my real name, simply because the web allows far greater exposure.

As a side-note and justification for my anonymity, I mentioned to some of the kids I teach that I have a bebo profile and have had for a couple of years or so when some of them were trying to generation-gap me with technology (really, they couldn’t have picked a worse way to do it….). Ever since then they’ve become obsessed with trying to find me on there. Sadly, of course, all my personal details are lies and my photos are deliberately unidentifiable. That hasn’t stopped them though. There’s some poor bastard by the name of Chocolatebear on there that they’re now convinced is me, who is no doubt being hounded by a cacophony of annoying teens who type in txt-speak.

I use my birth name online for a lot of reasons, mainly because in the fora in which I picked up the habit, it was transgressive and thus useful. Mainly I’ve stuck with it because I strive for a degree of transparency. This is not to say that I don’t have other names that are just as valid.

I think it’s a mixed bag, though because while someone might use a handle because of its authenticity, on the other hand many people do use handles for the anonymity.

Feh. Now I have Agent Smith saying “Mr. Anderson” stuck in my head.

Especially, when for many of us, the “digital life” is far more meaningful, relevant and personal. When that’s the case, who cares what your “real” name is.