Philosophy of my alt, do you need one?
Recently I posted Bread to cheer me up and it has got me thinking about pseudonyms in general. This one's new but all my life I've been on some forum or social media under some form of pseudonym.
Sometimes the platform went kaput and sometimes I just stopped using it because I got busy or bored. I can't say how long I will stick around here.
My reasoning is everything I post is partitioned off into my own nom de plume. While a criminal investigation would probably link me to my account, anybody with a search engine or even who gets my IP won't be able to find me from my account.
In reality I'm fairly uncontroversial. I may have re-posted a slightly edgy meme. I also said that people having a meltdown over bridges over on fedi are being overly dramatic. But that's about it.
Like excuse me? You're talking about calling a lawyer because somebody made an instance on a federated network. Yes it's copying your posts like literally everything else on fedi. If being on fedi isn't legal consent to federate then fedi itself is illegal. Get off of here and go talk to yourself on an unfederated instance you dufus.
Okay I was a little nicer than that when interacting with others. Funny tangent aside time to get back on topic.
In one way writing microblog posts and regular blog posts is just easier when you're under a pseudonym. I can talk about my feelings and share wacky articles with the confidence of psudonymity. Even talking in person with people you totally trust there's always a hint of ego or fear of judgment.
There is also the lack of repercussions to things I do or say. This is not to say I intend to be mean or hateful. I still want to bring value, or at least indifference, to those I communicate with online. Still I have a few ways in which there could be trouble.
Talking about feeling down is a good way to get a firearm possession/carry permit revoked or have current or future access to sensitive technological systems reconsidered. Likely not the mundane “Bread to cheer me up” but there are always outlier cases.
Or perhaps a future potential employer see a slightly edgy meme and is unhappy about it. Younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha will be the first to have an entirely online life. Who knows how it will turn out but I intend to avoid that.
Or perhaps future ideas change. If meta becomes the next gab to the fediverse could I end up on some eternal blocklist for supporting federation? Fedi citizens are sometimes overly dramatic like that. Refer to tangent above.
Precautionary as apposed to a specific need to hide my thoughts. But still peace of mind and insurance against a touch employer or friend with a search engine. I might be an anonymous troll demon according to Jordan Peterson. I might also be doing something that should be illegal according to Nikki Haily.
In reality? I'm just a dufus sharing feelings and half baked philosophies on the internet.
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