Attention Deficit Department

Fake Internet Names (And The First-Person Singular Voice)

I’m officially fed up with people who use nonsensical “screen names” on websites where they’re interacting with real people. […] I am getting really sick of finding out that “brooklyndude” liked my Vimeo videos, or zipzappizzazz is my tumblr follower. I have no idea who you people are, nor will I ever, unless you use a real name.

-Jakob

Y’know, it honestly didn’t occur to me that anyone might care who I am until just recently, but Jakob has a point. I’ve mostly been using tumblr with as little first-person voice as possible, letting people decide who or what I am purely on the basis of my selections. I figured that if I really wanted to talk I have about six different blogs for that… but I don’t use any of them because tumblr is so much more fun.

I’ve also noticed that after I follow somebody’s tumblelog for a while, I kind of feel like I know them. This is especially true of those people who inject their own voice into the datastream. I’m on a first-name basis with half the people I follow, at least in my attributions, and as much as I like seeing “tumbled from owenj23” on someone else’s item I think it would be even cooler with my real name.

I’m not trying to hide here. It wouldn’t take a genius to spend a few minutes with Google and find out who this “owenj23” character really is. I’m not going to stop using that character string anytime soon, for reasons that I’ll have to explain later, but there’s no reason for me to continue being coy.

This post is dedicated to:

• Jakob, although he doesn’t follow me here;
• Andrea, who I was on a first-name basis with before she even knew I existed;
• Pete Ashton, Melanie Colburn and Dawn Owar for showing me how it’s done;
• Bill Israel and Dalas Verdugo, who I’m going to keep attributing as Cubicle17 and Pseudolectual respectively, because I like the names;
• Likeaduck, Setuplikeadeckofcards, Yum9me and Mfg, who I hate attributing because of their clumsy names despite the fact that they post some cool stuff;
• and all the other internet crushes and cyber-stalkees I’ve found here (note: some not linked).

Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m Brian Rodewald. You can contact me via email or Jabber IM at owenj23[shift+2]gmail[period]com. Welcome to the new, improved Attention Deficit Department, now with added personal voice.