Tuesday, April 26, 2011

On the internet and anonymity

How many of you dudes are bloggers? Do you separate your real life from your blog life?

I have told a total of three people about this blog: Andy, my sister, and a friend who lives in a different city and who I'm 90% sure doesn't read it. Andy's fine with being blogged about but doesn't read this thing, and I think the Kid said she was okay with what I had put on here about her and Brian, but I never know. The internet is weird.

I've definitely given enough information on this joint for real-life acquaintances to identify me. I've considered going back through and giving people (and pets) code names, so as to make it less obvious, but then I give myself stern pep-talks about being paranoid and how very little on this thing is incriminating anyway. I mean, the time(s?) I posted from work, I did it on a work-sanctioned break. I'm hardly confessing to anything outrageous.

But because I don't tell people about this thing, I don't like sharing shit that I don't know for sure they wouldn't want on here. Some good friends of ours had a baby recently, and there's a neat little story about how they didn't find out the sex of the baby but their toddler kept announcing that it was his baby sister, and turns out he was right. They gave her a really pretty name, too, but I know I'd be kind of pissed if I had a kid and someone plastered their birth information all over the internet without my permission.

I think this is also partly a worry about how to share the awesome news with you dudes when the Kid has her baby - they picked out a name, but it's not mine to share. You know?

How do you all handle revealing shit - especially information that isn't directly related to you - with strangers on the internet?

2 comments:

  1. I don't use names. That makes the pronoun situation a little sticky sometimes, and it gets a little obvious, but I figure it's good policy...

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  2. That's not a bad idea. Do you use nicknames? I've thought about assigning nicknames, but I'm not sure how to do that without it feeling forced.

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