There's this strange phenomenon that occurs with anonymity on the web. Security reasons aside, it might seem odd to some that someone may want to conceal their identity online. Is it because they are hiding something? Or want to mislead you in some way?
In the early days of the internet, the username was a symbol of a human leaving something behind for someone else to find later. A callsign of a message to the void saying "I am here". Usually these messages came with helpful advice someone else might want to see, or a deep conversation about a shared passion, like a newspaper you could "catch up on" during your morning coffee. Over time these message got a bit more obscure when more "real-time" spaces emerged on the internet in the mid to late 2000's. In the social MMO boom, places emerged where you could be anything or anyone you wanted to be along with hundreds of other people having conversations in real time. Managing one's identity in these spaces was as easy as choosing a username and being whisked into a space where you can meet and spend time with people who had shared interests. Spend enough time, you might even find some friends for life. You hear countless stories of people who play for decades together knowing nothing more than a username, but knowing one on a much deeper level that they'd consider each other lifelong friends?
After all, on the internet no one needs to know you're a.. SeaMan
I think we've hit an interesting phase of the internet. The indie spaces we used to spend our time in no longer exist. It's become to expensive, I can't maintain it, It's not getting traffic anymore anyway. People have moved on. Instead of finding a nice restaurant to sit down and spend time in, we're just helplessly scrolling and sending messages in a bottle through the timeline hoping we've used the right keywords to attract our target audience. We've all been living on islands. Even when people meet eachother in spaces like these, it's often treated with the "Hi I met you from craigslist?" professionalism of answering a well-placed advertisement instead of a gradual conversation on a shared interest. Meeting someone through the latter, you're far less apprehensive about seeing them in person. You already know who they are, because you've gotten to know them through how they speak and interact with others. You just don't happen to know their legal name.
