by Tanner J. Willbanks
As pop culture fans who frequent the internet, we've all seen what anonymity can cause. Whether it is the usually sweet, calm mother of 4 who curses like a sailor when debating the merits of one Star Trek captain over another on some internet forum or the nerdy 12-year old boy who is too timid to speak in front of his class, but is willing to assert that he is the most knowledgeable X-Phile out there, being behind a keyboard allows for people to unleash a part of themselves that is usually kept hidden. Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that the church deacon who chastises people for cursing around him in public will let fly with a profanity-laced tirade on the merits of his Luke/Leia slash fiction?(And let me be the first to say that I'm pissed at myself for putting that mental image in my head.)
Easy, the reason that people feel the freedom to be absolutely horrible to one another on the internet is because it allows for total anonymity. You have no way to know if the person you are talking to is truly a 21 year old Swedish model with a fetish for gamers or if it is a 40 year old truck driver from Baton Rouge with too much time on his hands. This anonymity is what appeals to a great many people about the internet. However, in an age of social networking tools out the whazoo, a great deal of that anonymity is being stripped away.
Or is it?
I contribute blogs, very infrequently, to a couple of sites that are geared more towards political points of view. Within the context of these blogs, I make no bones about the fact that I am an unabashed progressive with some of the most liberal leanings you will find anywhere. I often write about things that many people find to be too progressive or the ravings of a "feminist male eunuch"(and if anybody knows what a female eunuch is, my friend George and I would very much like to know why the male qualifier was needed). However, one thing I can say is that anytime I write anything, it will be under my name. Tanner Willbanks, usually with my middle initial J just to make sure that there is no confusion. That can't be said for some of the other writers around the internet.
Now, I've heard many of the people who use pseudonyms when writing online give arguments, such as, "If I write this under my own name then I'll be fired." While I understand that getting fired is not something that is an optimal job scenario, still it is time for you to assess what is actually more important to you at that moment, staying in a field that is oppressive enough that what you write on the internet could lead to you being fired or speaking out about something that has upset you enough to need to vent about it online. Whichever way you decide to go, have the nerve to stand up and embrace your choice. If you decide that the injustice you want to rant about isn't worth losing your job, that is completely understandable. However, if you do decide that you need to tell the world about the injustice that you see, then stand up and do it proudly. Hiding behind a pseudonym only weakens your position.
With that being said, I can understand that, at times, there will be people who still need to use pseudonyms. Hell, my favorite book of all-time was written under a pseudonym(bonus points to anybody who can guess what it is). I accept that fake names are occasionally necessary when writing. However, in my daily life dealing with politically active people in Kansas, I am faced with a much more insidious use of the pseudonymous persona. There are a handful of "activists" in Kansas who do not exist at all. They have had entire lives made up by their creators, with Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, and even fake relationships, in order to give the impression that more people are active in the causes that these people are putting forward. They even go so far as to have Facebook wall conversations between the creators and the pseudonymous personae.
Why does this piss me off so much you ask?
Because I am active in these very same causes. And I know that there are a great number of active, committed people that actually exist who are worthy of our praise and admiration. However, by using fake personae to artificially inflate the numbers, these people are making the cause weaker. When one of these fake personae is so well known on the internet that people begin to talk about the great work they are doing at real life events, what happens when the opposition to the movements find out that these people do not exist?
I know that I've gone off on a rant here, but this has been building inside of me for a great deal of time. In fact it has bothered me ever since I first discovered that this practice was going on. So, I will say this to the people who have created these personae. You are committing a fraud against the people that are working so hard for the causes that you support, but who aren't aware that some of the "leaders" of the movement are actually non-existent. So, stop. Just stop. If you think you need the personae to bump the numbers of people that see about your events, well, that just means that you should promote harder as an actual human.
And, if you need the personae to be able to say things that you think could come back and bite you in the ass later in life, then you don't have the courage of your convictions in any real way. Perhaps you should take a lesson from the 10 year old kid willing to be persecuted because he wanted to stand up for the rights of homosexuals in this country. Seriously, if you aren't willing to put your name on something, then don't bother saying it.
I'm Tanner J. Willbanks. You can find me on Twitter at tjwills00 and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tjwills00. I stand behind everything that I've said in this post. Unlike some, I have nothing to hide.