Monday, February 16, 2015

On Rebranding

I'm a fairly private person, for various reasons. Part of it is an inherent paranoia instilled by waaay more knowledge about what goes on on the internet than I'd really like to have. Part is that I've done some things that people would consider questionable in the past, and with the current climate of doxxing and garubergroot jackassery, I don't really want to make a target of myself.

Part of it is that I don't have a good pseudonym anymore.

There's a point at which you've lived in a pseudonym so long it becomes more you than your legal name (especially if you have a nice generic one like I do), and thus it becomes easier to find and easier to hurt you because of it. The internet is forever, and the internet is also eternally publishing everything regardless of how you feel about it. (See also: the reasons I don't post videos to fetlife.)

So here I am, with a well-worn pseudonym that is more who I was than who I am, looking to rebrand myself for... for what exactly? So I can write under my own name without fear? So I can write fiction without fear of people trying to doxx me? So I can participate in activism? So I can be "out" about the things I do and the things I'm into?

And once you're into things that are *not* specifically porn - how do you choose a new name?