I’ll try to give the shorter version of my long-ass answer to this question.
When I first went online and got involved with the hacker community, the queer community, and other subcultural stuff as a kid in the 1990s - first on BBSes, then online services like CompuServe and AOL, and eventually the real Internet via Usenet, email lists, and web forum type things - it definitely was not the thing to do to use your “real” name and identity. So I did that for a while under made-up screennames, and eventually settled upon the screenname you see me using here.
Eventually around the turn of the millennium, as I grew up and the communities I’d flourished in online became a more and more important part of my life, I got tired of trying to lead the double-life thing. I was always conditioned to worry about what would happen if the people at my day job, my family, etc. in “real life” found out about the “me” I was online, but the more I settled into my adult self the more I realized that online me was the me I enjoyed being and I didn’t want to have to hide it. I never had much of a taste for living in closets.
Not to get all overdramatic or invite direct comparisons, but I’d found myself thinking about how in the Batman universe the Batman identity was described as the man being his true self while the playboy Bruce Wayne identity was the fake persona he put on to hide behind. I got tired of having to fabricate my own Bruce Wayne.
I’d stopped being camera-shy online or at hacker events, and began sharing my face photos in a time when it was not expected for everyone on social media to do so. I registered the domain of my more mundane non-screenname name, and put my personal site in all my online profiles. I began incorporating online work I’d done under my screenname in my resumes, figuring it was time to find myself work, friends, and “real life” surroundings that would appreciate the things I enjoy doing instead of freaking out when they found out about them.
It’s all worked out pretty nicely for me. My real-life family, friends, and colleagues appreciate who I am, people interested in work I do can easily connect, and I don’t have to worry about it all falling apart because the wrong person learns something about me. I like sharing who I am. I’m also in a very happy marriage with someone who met me on a dating app where I used this same screenname connected with both my online and real-life weirdness, and she appreciates all the different chunks of my life.
So, when it came time to ditch Reddit and check out Lemmy, I continued to use the same screenname and userpic I use everywhere else, and you can still click my profile and find both my online and real-life info. There was no compelling reason for me not to do that.
I’ll try to give the shorter version of my long-ass answer to this question.
When I first went online and got involved with the hacker community, the queer community, and other subcultural stuff as a kid in the 1990s - first on BBSes, then online services like CompuServe and AOL, and eventually the real Internet via Usenet, email lists, and web forum type things - it definitely was not the thing to do to use your “real” name and identity. So I did that for a while under made-up screennames, and eventually settled upon the screenname you see me using here.
Eventually around the turn of the millennium, as I grew up and the communities I’d flourished in online became a more and more important part of my life, I got tired of trying to lead the double-life thing. I was always conditioned to worry about what would happen if the people at my day job, my family, etc. in “real life” found out about the “me” I was online, but the more I settled into my adult self the more I realized that online me was the me I enjoyed being and I didn’t want to have to hide it. I never had much of a taste for living in closets.
Not to get all overdramatic or invite direct comparisons, but I’d found myself thinking about how in the Batman universe the Batman identity was described as the man being his true self while the playboy Bruce Wayne identity was the fake persona he put on to hide behind. I got tired of having to fabricate my own Bruce Wayne.
I’d stopped being camera-shy online or at hacker events, and began sharing my face photos in a time when it was not expected for everyone on social media to do so. I registered the domain of my more mundane non-screenname name, and put my personal site in all my online profiles. I began incorporating online work I’d done under my screenname in my resumes, figuring it was time to find myself work, friends, and “real life” surroundings that would appreciate the things I enjoy doing instead of freaking out when they found out about them.
It’s all worked out pretty nicely for me. My real-life family, friends, and colleagues appreciate who I am, people interested in work I do can easily connect, and I don’t have to worry about it all falling apart because the wrong person learns something about me. I like sharing who I am. I’m also in a very happy marriage with someone who met me on a dating app where I used this same screenname connected with both my online and real-life weirdness, and she appreciates all the different chunks of my life.
So, when it came time to ditch Reddit and check out Lemmy, I continued to use the same screenname and userpic I use everywhere else, and you can still click my profile and find both my online and real-life info. There was no compelling reason for me not to do that.