Pseudonyms

Over the weekend, Belle De Jour, one of the last remaining published ‘anonymous’ bloggers (which should really be pseudonymous bloggers, but let’s not be picky) has come out and revealed her ‘true’ name. There was also a piece in TechCrunch by Paul Carr about this, which made for interesting reading.

While I (for obvious reasons) don’t have an issue with pseudonymous bloggers, I do think that Carr’s point is equally valid – if you’re going to write something under a pseudonym, don’t go out and get a book deal. The concepts of pseudonyms and fame are pretty much mutually exclusive – yes, there are some people who’ve managed both, but not really during the current media-driven Age of Celebrity.

For me, some (OK, a fair number) people know my ‘real-life’ name. I write as Lyle to keep things separate from the real world – I don’t want a Google search on my real name to bring up D4D™, and I don’t want searches on D4D™ to easily bring up my name. I believe it is possible to make a connection or two these days, but I still try to keep the two apart as much as I can.

But I don’t want fame or a book deal. If I were looking for that, I would’ve done things very differently with D4D. (I mean for one thing, I’d have had a theme for it, rather than just random sweary rubbish) And for the writing I do where I would like/love/dream of getting it into production, of seeing the writing become properly known, I write in my own name, and on a totally different site.

I don’t have a problem with people writing pseudonymously, nor with them deciding to remove that pseudonymity in order to re-join the two parts of their lives. That’s fair enough.  I do object to the media forcing people to lose their pseudonymous lives (as happened with Girl With A One-Track Mind when her book came out) but that is – apparently, at least – not what’s happened with Belle de Jour.

As usual, I don’t really know where I’m going with this – it’s just a random spattering of thoughts. I suppose I just end up being bemused a bit when people get the book deal and still think/hope they can stay behind the pen-name.