When I did local journalism I always used my own name. I also didn’t give it as much thought, I don’t know if that has to do with the changing times or the difference between print and online or just me being younger. Coming out is a good analogy, though. Thanks for reading ❤️
If you decide you do want anything changed I’m happy to change it. For what it’s worth—I am there with you. Putting this out into the world has been hard on my nervous system. There’s a calcified part of me that still believes the trolls are watching and waiting and ready to pounce. I don’t know if that’s what you’re experiencing, too. But either way I’m with you in solidarity ❤️
This is such an important topic, and it deserves more visibility and discussion. How did using our names become both a curse and a place of privilege? And, as I have mentioned many times before, those of us who are queer, and really even more so when we are trans, are so vulnerable to doxing, hate speech, shame hurling, vile words, and unhinged emotions from everyone we don't know when we show up online. I live in a constant state of pride and regret over my choice to be myself in this space. It's great that I'm building community by leveraging my own authenticity (not saying that using a psued means you are inauthentic), but even this choice prevents me from sharing things that I might be able to say if I did not use my real name.
In the end I feel like this is a displaced burden or responsibility, not unlike those areas calling for teachers in classrooms to be armed with guns in order to protect their students from people armed with guns... The problem is not that we want to tell our stories AND use our names OR be taken seriously for not using our names. The problem is how acceptable the violence around our online presence has become. That should inspire outrage everywhere.
Agree with everything you’re saying here. This is a collective problem with our culture and its norms and systems, and we as individuals are faced with impossible choices within that context. We can only make the compromises that make the most sense for ourselves and our work at any given time. But coming together to talk about this stuff feels really empowering and helpful. I don’t have any solutions to offer except a desire to be in conversation and solidarity with others. Which actually feels like a lot. Thank you for reading, Robin. I admire your work here on Substack tremendously.
Rachel, you always blow me away with the depth and complexity of your analysis. I wish I had a concrete solution or idea of how to address this growing problem, but unfortunately, I’m just as scared and clueless as everyone else. I’m grateful to you for sharing this bit of your experience and talking about this dark digital cloud looming over us all the time — specifically in reference to those of us who are more vulnerable to malicious attacks. In a sad, fucked up sort of way, I feel very seen :,)
Thanks for hanging out here with me in the mess and scariness of it all, Eli. It’s been really lovely and inspiring to see your face on Substack. I’m inching toward more openness. I also think the best defense we can build is solidarity with each other.
I’m with you 100%. There’s a part of me that almost spitefully wants to be completely open, say “fuck it” to the risks and just be myself. But there’s also the reality that I’m a person with severe PTSD who probably couldn’t handle the full weight of a cyberstalking / doxxing / smear campaign, so I gotta draw a line somewhere — much to my spiteful self’s dismay.
I love this post and the portrait of the physical experience of cyber attacks, well. I felt it in my body. I just got back from seeing Hannah Gadsby--who always talks about being trolled in her comedy, and Chloe Petts, who described not being able to get out of bed even while making fun of the men who attack her. The idea that only anonymity is truly safe...is terribly sad. The alternative, to fight and protect and fight and protect...is exhausting. And yet we who work on the internet walk this line. You go.
And anonymity can feel like a kind of slow strangulation, even if it protects us physically. You're right, it is about walking a line, working an edge, being in a tension. It's problem without a solution, only messy compromises that we can live with in the moment. Although I will say, I am spiraling slowly, I think, toward comfort with more disclosure.
Yes, there's a kind of erasure in this ridiculous need for self protection. And the need is real. I'm on the end of no one puts fae in a corner, but your post made me realize that the physical threat possible...well, hiding address and phone number are good things for me to do.
Insightful. At one point, a few years ago, I closed all social media accounts, or put them on hold, and took my webpage down, due to online bullying and harassment. I also pulled away from the real, live community. I lost several years of hard work I'd put into building a community around my writing.
I'm back now. But, although the culture here, Downunder, is possibly not as dangerous, in some ways, the psychological and emotional impact is head on, has not fully resolved.
I can be seen online. But it remains a mixed presence. And for now, that is enough.
But, as I too, seek to write memoir, I want to own it. My voice, and that of my ancestral line, deserves a space, to be heard.
While I have a very long way to go in improving my craft, and even further in exploring when, where and how to publish what I write, I am braving this online world, once again.
Thank you, for showing how we can be brave, inspite of our fears, and for showing how to take care of self in the process.
"My voice, and that of my ancestral line, deserves a space, to be heard."
Yes yes yes this this this!
Thank you for this thoughtful reply and for sharing your experience. It burns me that so many of us have lost so much--work, community, our sense of safety.
I'm so happy this piece resonated with you, and I can't wait to see your memoir.
Great questions and much to be chewed on. I started as a journalist and kept my name largely out of laziness. The trolls and haters have certainly found me, but they have also thankfully *knocks on wood* moved on quickly enough. Naming is perhaps like coming out - one does it when one is ready and to the extent that they feel comfortable. And we should feel as safe as we can, however we need to.
This is very timely, for a number of reasons. I write and do all my 'public' work under my pseudo. Originally, I created it to to avoid a very conservative employer from seeing my weirdness on the socials -- as I am a witch, sorcerer, whatever— a magic person.
17 years on, I've conducted so much of my life under this name. And most of what I think of as my most honest -- or at least least guarded -- work under it. While traveling this summer, I started introducing myself to my fellow hikers and bikers who were using it, which was new and a wee bit scary. What came along with doing so was a variety of other things I'd typically never lead with due to masking. My neurodivergence, my identity as a queer person (which I never really put out there before because I don't fit the standard operating perception of that). It was very interesting and freeing.
An internal side-conversation began: am I more myself as this name? Does it carry less baggage from attempts at compliance with others' expectations? Do I want to walk in the world 'Aidan forward' all the time? What about my safety concerns, not necessarily in my day-to-day as it is right now, but in a potential theocratic-fascist future? Do I need that buffer? Do I want to let it go even if it's in some ways wiser? I'm not sure.
Anyway -- as I said, quite timely! Thank you, as always, for writing.
These are such interesting questions. Names do carry baggage. And sometimes pseudonyms are tools of liberation, as well as protection. Ziggy Stardust did things that David Jones probably never could have seen himself doing.
I think a lot about masking and passing. What we gain and what we give up. Masking is an incredible energy suck. (And not masking can be a different kind of energy suck.) The amount of energy that becomes available to us when we don’t have to mask anymore can be pretty incredible. I hope you find spaces and communities where you can lead with your queerness and neurodivergence and see where it leads you. I do mask in parts of my life, and the spaces and communities where I don't have to are like battery recharge stations where I remember who I am.
When I did local journalism I always used my own name. I also didn’t give it as much thought, I don’t know if that has to do with the changing times or the difference between print and online or just me being younger. Coming out is a good analogy, though. Thanks for reading ❤️
And, just as an aside as how deep all this goes emotionally, I'm sitting in fear right now.
(I don't want anything changed, leave it all as it is.)
I think this is a good piece that is looking at a serious problem.
If you decide you do want anything changed I’m happy to change it. For what it’s worth—I am there with you. Putting this out into the world has been hard on my nervous system. There’s a calcified part of me that still believes the trolls are watching and waiting and ready to pounce. I don’t know if that’s what you’re experiencing, too. But either way I’m with you in solidarity ❤️
No worries. I'm just sorry you have to stress about this <3
This is such an important topic, and it deserves more visibility and discussion. How did using our names become both a curse and a place of privilege? And, as I have mentioned many times before, those of us who are queer, and really even more so when we are trans, are so vulnerable to doxing, hate speech, shame hurling, vile words, and unhinged emotions from everyone we don't know when we show up online. I live in a constant state of pride and regret over my choice to be myself in this space. It's great that I'm building community by leveraging my own authenticity (not saying that using a psued means you are inauthentic), but even this choice prevents me from sharing things that I might be able to say if I did not use my real name.
In the end I feel like this is a displaced burden or responsibility, not unlike those areas calling for teachers in classrooms to be armed with guns in order to protect their students from people armed with guns... The problem is not that we want to tell our stories AND use our names OR be taken seriously for not using our names. The problem is how acceptable the violence around our online presence has become. That should inspire outrage everywhere.
Our names are sacred. Our stories are sacred.
Agree with everything you’re saying here. This is a collective problem with our culture and its norms and systems, and we as individuals are faced with impossible choices within that context. We can only make the compromises that make the most sense for ourselves and our work at any given time. But coming together to talk about this stuff feels really empowering and helpful. I don’t have any solutions to offer except a desire to be in conversation and solidarity with others. Which actually feels like a lot. Thank you for reading, Robin. I admire your work here on Substack tremendously.
And if you have any ideas about how to continue this conversation or bring more visibility to the issue I’d love to hear them!
Rachel, you always blow me away with the depth and complexity of your analysis. I wish I had a concrete solution or idea of how to address this growing problem, but unfortunately, I’m just as scared and clueless as everyone else. I’m grateful to you for sharing this bit of your experience and talking about this dark digital cloud looming over us all the time — specifically in reference to those of us who are more vulnerable to malicious attacks. In a sad, fucked up sort of way, I feel very seen :,)
Thanks for hanging out here with me in the mess and scariness of it all, Eli. It’s been really lovely and inspiring to see your face on Substack. I’m inching toward more openness. I also think the best defense we can build is solidarity with each other.
I’m with you 100%. There’s a part of me that almost spitefully wants to be completely open, say “fuck it” to the risks and just be myself. But there’s also the reality that I’m a person with severe PTSD who probably couldn’t handle the full weight of a cyberstalking / doxxing / smear campaign, so I gotta draw a line somewhere — much to my spiteful self’s dismay.
I love this post and the portrait of the physical experience of cyber attacks, well. I felt it in my body. I just got back from seeing Hannah Gadsby--who always talks about being trolled in her comedy, and Chloe Petts, who described not being able to get out of bed even while making fun of the men who attack her. The idea that only anonymity is truly safe...is terribly sad. The alternative, to fight and protect and fight and protect...is exhausting. And yet we who work on the internet walk this line. You go.
And anonymity can feel like a kind of slow strangulation, even if it protects us physically. You're right, it is about walking a line, working an edge, being in a tension. It's problem without a solution, only messy compromises that we can live with in the moment. Although I will say, I am spiraling slowly, I think, toward comfort with more disclosure.
Yes, there's a kind of erasure in this ridiculous need for self protection. And the need is real. I'm on the end of no one puts fae in a corner, but your post made me realize that the physical threat possible...well, hiding address and phone number are good things for me to do.
Insightful. At one point, a few years ago, I closed all social media accounts, or put them on hold, and took my webpage down, due to online bullying and harassment. I also pulled away from the real, live community. I lost several years of hard work I'd put into building a community around my writing.
I'm back now. But, although the culture here, Downunder, is possibly not as dangerous, in some ways, the psychological and emotional impact is head on, has not fully resolved.
I can be seen online. But it remains a mixed presence. And for now, that is enough.
But, as I too, seek to write memoir, I want to own it. My voice, and that of my ancestral line, deserves a space, to be heard.
While I have a very long way to go in improving my craft, and even further in exploring when, where and how to publish what I write, I am braving this online world, once again.
Thank you, for showing how we can be brave, inspite of our fears, and for showing how to take care of self in the process.
"My voice, and that of my ancestral line, deserves a space, to be heard."
Yes yes yes this this this!
Thank you for this thoughtful reply and for sharing your experience. It burns me that so many of us have lost so much--work, community, our sense of safety.
I'm so happy this piece resonated with you, and I can't wait to see your memoir.
Thankyou.
Great questions and much to be chewed on. I started as a journalist and kept my name largely out of laziness. The trolls and haters have certainly found me, but they have also thankfully *knocks on wood* moved on quickly enough. Naming is perhaps like coming out - one does it when one is ready and to the extent that they feel comfortable. And we should feel as safe as we can, however we need to.
This is very timely, for a number of reasons. I write and do all my 'public' work under my pseudo. Originally, I created it to to avoid a very conservative employer from seeing my weirdness on the socials -- as I am a witch, sorcerer, whatever— a magic person.
17 years on, I've conducted so much of my life under this name. And most of what I think of as my most honest -- or at least least guarded -- work under it. While traveling this summer, I started introducing myself to my fellow hikers and bikers who were using it, which was new and a wee bit scary. What came along with doing so was a variety of other things I'd typically never lead with due to masking. My neurodivergence, my identity as a queer person (which I never really put out there before because I don't fit the standard operating perception of that). It was very interesting and freeing.
An internal side-conversation began: am I more myself as this name? Does it carry less baggage from attempts at compliance with others' expectations? Do I want to walk in the world 'Aidan forward' all the time? What about my safety concerns, not necessarily in my day-to-day as it is right now, but in a potential theocratic-fascist future? Do I need that buffer? Do I want to let it go even if it's in some ways wiser? I'm not sure.
Anyway -- as I said, quite timely! Thank you, as always, for writing.
Aidan
These are such interesting questions. Names do carry baggage. And sometimes pseudonyms are tools of liberation, as well as protection. Ziggy Stardust did things that David Jones probably never could have seen himself doing.
I think a lot about masking and passing. What we gain and what we give up. Masking is an incredible energy suck. (And not masking can be a different kind of energy suck.) The amount of energy that becomes available to us when we don’t have to mask anymore can be pretty incredible. I hope you find spaces and communities where you can lead with your queerness and neurodivergence and see where it leads you. I do mask in parts of my life, and the spaces and communities where I don't have to are like battery recharge stations where I remember who I am.
Thank you for reading.
Another great essay from my friend Rachel [Redacted]. Well done.
Rachel Redacted isn’t bad as a pen name.
Or Rachel, Redactor if I wanted to be a supervillain.