Pseudonym Sunday: Why Pseudonyms?

Two days ago, I explored why fans might choose to go anonymous in their interactions with fandom at large – mainly for the sake of privacy and all the freedoms that it entails.

  

Today, however, I will be looking at the close cousin to anonymity - the pseudonym - which I will be returning to weekly. I find the two forms of online personas to be pretty similar in that they both relinquish and distance themselves from a person’s true identity. Anonymity is just taken to one extreme of that spectrum. Pseudonyms are a bit more moderate by giving a definitive username. True, a pseudonym somewhat constrains the freedom afforded to a user by giving them a traceable identity. But, they are also given a completely blank slate, a new beginning. The user can start from scratch and mold their identity in any way they see fit. Gender, race, age, job, nationality – they all become insignificant. The user can literally be anyone.

Full post here.

Like anonymity, pseudonyms can be very liberating. This sort of control over identity can open up a fan to a variety of paths and behaviors. A pseudonym, for example, creates enough separation between fan activity and real life while still allowing the fan to claim certain works or comments as their own. They are identifiable only by an assumed persona. And the best part is that you can shuck off that facade at any time for any reason. For some people, this freedom alone is sufficient for their needs. It gives them a decisive divide between fannish and real life activities, or even separation between different fandoms.

Others like to play around with their options a bit more. It’s not uncommon for people to make roleplaying accounts. In such cases the username and profile are all modeled after a character from some media and the account’s behavior tends to follow that role. It’s a bit of harmless fun for the most part. A few users, however, choose to exploit pseudonyms. When drama gets stirred up in a fandom, some fans create new, separate accounts to to use as tools for deception. This is done in order to make it appear as if other users are rallying for or against the original, even though all of the users are really one person. This sort of behavior is known by many as sockpuppeting and is generally frowned upon. There are some very infamous tales of online sockpuppets, but that will be another story for another week.