Almost every website these days has anonymous posting. Indeed, some websites, such as the infamous 4chan and its derivatives, survive almost entirely on such features. Even on sites that encourage accounts and usernames, users are often able to comment anonymously.
To be clear, when I talk about anonymous, I’m not referring to the hacktivist group Anonymous that has been making headlines recently. Although their work is very interesting and worth discussing at length, it will not be the focus of this blog. I am more focused on the creative aspects of the anonymous function, and for that, I turn to fandom.
If this is what you came here for, then this blog is not for you.
The websites I will be looking at specifically will include livejournal, tumblr, and dreamwidth. Why? Because all of these sites have well known and used anonymous functions. Also? They are where fandoms tend to flock, with livejournal being the oldest of the three and tumblr the most popular at the moment. True, livejournal’s heyday was in the early 2000s, and some may argue that it is outdated and in danger of falling completely into disuse, but it still contains massive archives of old activity and still sees some use today. For these reasons, I will continue to refer to it as I chart the use of anonymous in fandom.
It goes almost without saying that due to the nature of this project, this blog will likely deal with and link to violent and/or sexual content. Anonymous features tend to bring out the worst in us at times, and it would be remiss to ignore that side of anonymous. I will try my best to limit such content when discussing it and to always warn readers about it in posts and links. Of course, there is always a possibility that I might miss something, so you might want to proceed with caution if that bothers you.
And to stay in the spirit of things, all posts to this blog will be anonymous!
