
#DAY OF INFAMY BOTS OFFLINE#
Yet, obligations to live life on social media platforms-cultivating a profile page and growing your followers-means our offline and online identities are increasingly intertwined, often requiring us to contort our irl selves into prescribed internet shapes.
#DAY OF INFAMY BOTS FREE#
Today, in many senses and places, society is more politically and socially free than at any time in history. Her biography, Life and Letters, explains her choice to maintain dual artistic and personal identities: “Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito-having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation.” Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pseudonym George Eliot, becoming one of the most celebrated authors of the Victorian era. Despite widespread speculation about her identity, Elena Ferrante, the famed Italian novelist behind the Neapolitan Novels, remains pseudonymous and suggests “removing the author.creates a space that wasn’t there before.” Banksy is one of the most well-known artists in the world, yet the world knows little about him at all. Ibn Warraq, an author critical of Islam, allegedly adopted a pseudonym to avoid the fate of Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses led to an official call for his assassination in Iran. Employing a pseudonym can be a choice to garner more credibility, an attempt to avoid persecution while challenging orthodoxy, or an opportunity to embrace artistic freedom without trepidation. If you won’t tell me your age we call it ‘privacy,’ but if you won’t tell me your name, then that could be called ‘pseudonymity,’ but it’s just another data point you want to keep yourself private.”Īcross art, activism, music, science, and literature, many historical and contemporary figures have made the same choice. My former colleague shared their perspective on the matter with me over direct messages, and is surprisingly nonchalant about their decision to remain unknown: “Pseudonymity is just another layer of privacy. They communicate solely through writing and are well-regarded for their contributions. All anyone knows of their appearance comes from a single profile picture, which may or may not be of them.ĭespite this, they’ve worked at the company for over a decade as one of the longest tenured staff.

They use a pseudonym that may or may not derive from their real name. At the last company I worked for, there was one team member no one had ever met or spoken with face-to-face.
