Why I use an alias
Actually, it's a pretty interesting reason.
Hey that’s not you!
“What’s with that obviously fake name and picture?” That is what I’m sure some of you will be asking with my persona.
I believe in a self-made motto. "Timelessness is a hollow virtue." Essentially, I think that people's attempts to glorify themselves belie a fear not solely of death but also irrelevance. So many people are trying to create that magical formula to immortalize themselves or become attached to a concept that will live past them. However, ultimately, I think that living in order to leave a legacy is a vain attempt that never really accomplishes anything. Think of all the famous people you know right now. Chances are you only know their public persona, not the real one. Nobody left alive likely remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite ice cream flavor. All we know is of the civil rights icon. And while that is positive in some sense to me, it's actually deeply saddening. That all the little things that made him a person are erased. The way he likely looked up at the sun every morning or the way he probably got anal about there being scuff marks on his shoes. It's all gone and replaced with a larger-than-life legend.
“Timelessness is a hollow virtue.”
What it boils down to is that I'd like to keep my humanity. Ephemeral, desperate, and fallible as it is. I think there is something telling that people often seek glory. A glory that ultimately won’t amount to anything. People will soon forget you and me and even in trying to uphold our memory you have to run the question of if its ’s right to force people to carve a portion out of their lives to glorify you. Using an alias allows me to separate myself from the goals I wish to pursue in both my philosophical career and my other goals. There are many other reasons, which again hearken back to my motto, such as the fact that many people seek certain pieces of status to glorify their own ego, often at the expense of the current moment. There is so much I have to say about that, but it will have to be saved for another post. How I do things prevents me from glorifying my ego in ways another person without an alias might.
Using my persona as a shield to maintain my life's privacy has enabled me to navigate interactions without them becoming overbearing. After I contracted a rare, debilitating disease, it significantly altered my physical condition to the point where I've become, in essence, a shadow of my former self. So many things have changed for the worse, and I could write an entire post about how people have changed the way they treat me. The vibrant health and attractiveness I once took for granted, often leading others to inquire if I was a model (I actually was about to become one), has faded, leaving me to grapple with a reflection that now fills me with a bitter sadness. What’s even stranger is that people who were once jealous of my looks had become emboldened and smug by my “defeat.” Navigating the world in a disabled and scarred body has come with more challenges than should be fair to endure. But I believe even these unfortunate circumstances can be leveraged for some good. Furthermore, this persona (Danni Gadfly) serves as a crucial sanctuary for me, allowing me to “role-play” my way to a semblance of happiness in a space where my queer identity, which remains undisclosed in my real-life interactions, can exist without the fear of judgment.
I haven’t had much opportunity to interact with people online. I am intrigued by the possibility that people might find a sense of comfort in engaging with an avatar, a digital veil, rather than the complexities of a normal human. The novelty of this alias means I am still navigating the unforeseen challenges it presents, including a heightened need to safeguard my identity. While accommodating the use of aliases on the internet, it also introduces a paradox of visibility and anonymity. Many are adept at maneuvering through this duality as if it were second nature. Yet, there remains a lack of understanding about the intricacies of alias use, such as the intensified obligation to protect one's identity amidst the vast, often unforgiving, expanse of the internet.
There are some things that I plan to pursue in my life outside of my blog and ventures under this alias. For one I aim to start pre-medicine soon at a college and hope to be a family practitioner. While writing books, making videos, writing screenplays, etc., are fun, I would never give up my passion for being a doctor for them. I truly want to do both together. To bring healing to those in impoverished nations while increasing accessibility to philosophy and helping people escape the negative patterns society and systems force us into.
Personal Motivations for Adopting an Alias
“Give a man a mask, and he’ll show you his true face.”
Social media and the internet have allowed people to use aliases for bad and good. I’m reminded of the quote, “Give a man a mask, and he’ll show you his true face.” (Which seems to be a derivative of Oscar Wilde’s quote, “Give a man a mask, and he’ll tell you the truth.”) I agree that people feel free enough to reveal deeper pieces of themselves when they know they cannot easily be traced back to them. We see it nearly every week at this point of crimes or certain things being traced back to people who you’d least expect, typically behind a digital veil. I’m reminded of that harassment case that happened a few months back of a teenage girl getting death threats and severe harassment from an anonymous person. When the police were contacted because it was so incredibly bad, they ended up tracing it back to her own mother (source: 9&10 News). Nobody would have expected this to be the case, but again, my point is that when you give people the freedom to do nearly anything and not have it be traced back to themselves, many pieces of a person that they don’t show the light of day can emerge. And it’s not always negative things either. When you separate some people from an environment that demands a specific thing from them, it’s not uncommon for many positive aspects to come to the surface. But you can tell a lot about someone who does charitable work with no intention of getting recognition for it.
I certainly think building genuine connections with a pseudonym is possible. I don’t think the fact that I’m protecting my identity has to be a shield against genuine connection. In fact, it can lead to a sincerely deep connection that many people in my daily life may not even have access to—a connection to me that is detached from connotations that I don’t personally associate with myself, such as the way people may have humiliated me in school or the abuses I suffered at home, etc. And even when I divulge details of those circumstances, I can do it in a way that empowers me without having to be traced back to me or other people who may have since grown from those things.
Navigating the Online Landscape with an Alias
I know people who use avatars as a form of escapism. I think we all do, and there’s nothing wrong with escapism, in my opinion. Personally, though, I’m not a fan of escapism. I think that challenges in life should be met head-on when possible. To be fair, though, I understand why some people rely on escapism. It can become intoxicating to deal with the way that escapism lifts one’s feet off the ground, so to speak. To that end, I’m not actually escaping by using this persona but am dealing with my challenges in an alternative way. And in a sense, that’s why I ultimately understand why people rely on escapism for the most part. Because we’re all dealing with these lives (which we did not ask for) in the only ways we know how.
And it’s not like I’ll always be using an alias. I plan on revealing my identity at a random time so that people will be caught off guard. It would be fun that way, and that’s what it’s all about. Doing this in a way that brings me happiness. I’ll consider whether I’m in a place in my life where I am separate from people who would judge me and whether I can become stable with my health. At first, I can understand why some people might say I’m being inauthentic by using an online persona. However, I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that online representations of people are necessarily more or less authentic; I will certainly say that people often confuse the internet and real life. It can be difficult to separate online life from the physical world, and many people who operate in online echo chambers seem to have an aversion to the real world. People’s shadows tend to come off the leash more easily online. Interacting this way (via an alias) allows me to be more vulnerable than worrying about my day-to-day identity. It ultimately gives me less to juggle and allows me to focus on discussing more personal matters without being talked about by my peers the next day. Take my neurodivergence instance. I don’t feel the need to mask my persona. I can simply relax and explore who I actually am when people aren’t demanding assimilation of me. Ever want to see someone with untreated, severe ADHD write an article? Well, here you go, and I won’t be apologizing for it… because I’ll probably forget to.
In some ways, it is possible that my alias chases after timelessness. However, while it may remain with the avatar, I believe that timelessness will likely never attach itself to me. Especially because I’m not going about my philosophical work in a unique manner. So many other contemporary philosophers have websites and YouTube channels. However, it’s true that a legend can build off people wanting to find my identity. I plan to reveal my identity eventually so that it doesn’t become a situation like D.B. Cooper or Jack the Ripper, where so many people are still trying to figure them out to this day. (What a strange comparison to end this post on.)
