On blogging with your real name
I really left the blogging grid for three months this summer while I was in Africa, and I've been having a hard time returning. Part of this is because I wanted to debrief on my experience in private, and part of it is because I was travelling for about a month upon my return back to North America. But largely this is because of an influx in links to this site that cite my full real name.
I've never been shy about my full real name in emailing or otherwise communicating with readers and fellow bloggers. I think I'm shying away from all the people I know vaguely in real life, or people who know me but I don't know them, or people who want to hire me, and etc. Like I'm sure classmates with whom I've never conversed might have found this. Or former co-workers, or even students I've taught. Anybody that googles my name will be easily linked to this blog. Maybe I'm flattering myself by thinking that anybody would even google me. But still. Yeh know?
And the real problem with this isn't so much privacy as it is consistency. Anybody can be honest anonymously. To be honest with your real name? A lot harder. We all have certain groups of people that we act differently around. Like I don't swear in front of my family. I'm not as politically-minded in front of engineering classmates. I'm more professional around co-workers. I'm more confrontational with group x, and more willing to make terrible jokes around group y. And etc.
I don't think that by admitting to have facets to my personality, that I admit to being two-faced. Or six-faced. I think it's common to be slightly different around different people. And so to blog with your real name is to amalgamate all these personae into one package, your blog persona. Every person I've ever met has the potential to read this blog, and thus it's critical as a non-anomyous blogger to assume full responsibility for everything that I post here. It's kind of overwhelming!
So I've really got two options.
1. Ask anybody linking to me to not use my real name. But I don't want this. No closets for this blogger!
2. Be more responsible for my content. This will involve going back through my archives and deleting anything that I can think of even one person I know who would be hurt if they read it. Future content will be harder to come up with, I guess. But that's the challenge of blogging with your real name!
In conclusion, never let somebody tell you that anonymous bloggers are more honest. Never believe that.
10 comments:
I'm not sure deleting everything that could offend anyone is very honest. I think you should embrace your wholeself and expect others to do the same. I'd delete anything that is mean or things that you really don't think represent you but otherwise leave it and expect people to talk to you if the're upset.
I agree with so much of this as someone who was anonymous kind of accidentally for awhile and then popped out into the open with flashy lights and bells on, ha :) I'm honest, yes, but you're right about the different faces of ourselves we wear with different groups. I'm as genuinely me professionally with my coworkers as I am loudly with my roommates at home, but one "side" of me is more appropriate in a given situation than another.
Great post, Lisa. Love it. :)
I've been meaning to go back and clean up my content for MONTHS.
Great post though...you're a rockstar though and only good things will come from strangers reading this site.
I'm struggling with this too, but leaning more and more away from being anonymous... Scary, but we'll see!
I could have never gone the anonymous route, it just wouldn't have worked for me. And yeah, I think being honest when you're out there with who you are is a challenge, but I've found that it's infinitely worth it.
I try to keep in mind that people i know (who may have googled me by full name) may be reading and even when I'm in full blown rant I try to remember this and even try to make the situation or people involved ever so slightly vague. Then at least if they find it they can't PROVE I'm talking about them...
I struggled with this a lot a few months after losing my job. I wanted to be vulnerable and authentic on my blog, especially since I had so many emotions inside, but I knew my previos/potential future employers could see it all. It was a hard thing to balance. I hope you are able to find a balance you feel comfortable with.
I'm as genuinely me professionally with my coworkers as I am loudly with my roommates at home, but one "side" of me is more appropriate in a given situation than another.That need to more polish and hard.
it's such a hard line to toe. i'm lucky in that googling my name doesn't bring anyone to my blog (yet! still!) but i have my photo and my first name thrown all over the page, so it's super recognizable if someone happened upon it who does know me. luckily i'm pretty self-centered so it's easy for me to not think too hard about it for too long ;-P
You know, often times I think it would have been better if I was blogging under an anonymous persona. I could say whatever I want. Currently, I'm always fearing someone I know running into my blog, or a random blogger finding my home.
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