Obscure My Identity, Please: I'm a Blogger

Preamble:

I don't know why I even bother blogging on Friday. I feel like nobody reads blogs on Fridays, or, at least, people don't read mine. What the fuck are all of you people Orthos or something?

Amble:

As most of you know, I had me a little blog before this one. From June until February, I was just a little Pudd'nhead, spouting off my opinions, tossing in my silly little hyperlinks, trying to figure out the world in my own unique, profane way. Then, one day, I got "found out" by someone I didn't want "finding me out." I felt jeopardized and threatened, simply for speaking my peace. So, I did what any rational, logical blogger would do in my shoes: I killed the blog.

When I restarted afresh, I took steps to ensure my anonymity. I thought just creating a fake name for myself was enough, but it's not. See, in the heady desire to get more followers and more hits and more visits, a blogger must do a bit of networking and advertising to get his or her wares out there, just like a purveyor of fake fried eggs must, which, by the way, I just placed an order for (don't ask).

The wish for readers is in direct conflict, unfortunately, with the quest for anonymity. You might be wondering why a blogger must possess anonymity in the first place. Well, the answer is simple: because there are those out there who would do us harm. There are those who would use our words against us. There are those who will not permit us to exercise our 1st Amendment right, our beloved freedom of expression. There are those who would go after our reputations and our occupations and our marriages and sometimes even our lives.

I get very jealous when I see bloggers out there using their full and real names, their real pictures. I want to be them, but I feel I can't. I have to protect myself. And maybe they're just naive, and maybe they'll get burned one day, I don't know. I hope not, but they probably will. Some would argue that, when you're putting information out there, you should man up to it by putting your real name on everything you write, but I disagree. If we lived in a society where there were not negative repercussions for self-expression, maybe I would, but we don't. People are routinely losing their jobs and their respect simply by posting funny pictures of themselves on Facebook or because things they've written on blogs have been taken out-of-context or misinterpreted. Why should I open the door and allow that to happen to me? Why can't I put on at least a chain lock?

Look, I'm not so dumb that I don't know the internet is a potentially very dangerous place. It's rife with misinformation and outright lies, it's a haven for perverts and scumbags-- but, then again, so is Camden. I understand that human resource departments and potential employers have to be on the lookout for assgrabbers and criminals, but posting acerbic ramblings on a blog or talking about your neighbors or posting a pic on Facebook of you giving a blowjob to a 10-foot-tall Smokey the Bear cut-out (guilty!) isn't against the law. It may be regarded as in dubious taste by some of the more priggish members of our society, but even they were young and semiretarded once, too. They all shit like the rest of us, they just don't write about it.

It's an outrage that simple bloggers, who are not breaking any laws, feel that they have to shroud themselves in pseudonyms and avatars simply so that they can keep their jobs and their friends intact. You might say, "Well, that's the way it is, and, if you don't like it, then stop blogging," and that's a pretty valid point. I could very easily go back to who I was before I became a blogger and my life would go on and your life would go on, too. If you've been reading this horseshit thing every day, you might be bummed for a day or two, but you'd get over it pretty quickly and you'd move on. The fact of the matter is that I'm not doing anything wrong by blogging, so why should I, or any other noncriminal blogger stop? Who are we hurting with our compendium of thoughts and words?

It may be written that we have freedom of speech in this country, but it carries a heavy cost. When bloggers feel threatened and wary and anxiety-ridden enough to hide who they are, simply so that they can write honestly, we're paying a significant price for our little freedoms that amount to little but window-dressing, and flimsy, chintzy window-dressing at that.