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Let’s Talk About Anonymity And Identity

Like we highlighted earlier, Unique-Frequency has fired a salvo our way. We think it’s because we said he was an upcoming Singapore social media guru. We apologize. We actually believe he is a bona fide social media guru. Since a blog post does not give any indication of tone, we shall now say that we are not being sarcastic and sincerely believe that Unique-Frequency’s blog posts are like manna from heaven.

Unique-Frequency generously offers two reasons why anyone might choose to blog anonymously:

1) It allows them to say things they would otherwise keep silent about (within good reason)
2) Posting as themselves would get them into trouble due to confidentiality issues

I shall now add another possible reason. The person is not drool-worthy like krisandro. We heart you krisandro! Why subject our pothole-infested faces to everyone online?

Unique-Frequency hurts us deep. You can accuse us of being trashy, unintelligent, unimaginative but we do not mostly just regurgitate. Please read the other posts not about you Daryl. sob sob…. better yet, subscribe?

Let’s talk about anonymity and identity when blogging.

1. Bloggers like Xiaxue.

I use Xiaxue as an example because I think she is the best blogger Singapore has. She puts it all out there for everyone to see, scrutinize and judge. We heart her but not in a gay way. I don’t think there is anyway to be more transparent than Xiaxue and while it won’t always lead to trust, it definitely helps build strong feelings of hate or affinity with the readers.

2. Bloggers like Unique-Frequency.

These bloggers blog about their area of interest with a pseudonym but their identity is not hidden. Who Unique-Frequency is can easily be found out and the blogger makes no attempt to conceal his identity. Why? It might be because there is little point in hiding your identity when showing insight about an industry, especially when it is not mob-inciting, can help build your off-line and online reputation.

Some of these bloggers also do not just blog about a particular niche they are interested in but also share aspects of their life.

3. The bloggers who use their ‘identity’ to gain trust.

It works two ways. Writing well online can help build your off-line and online reputation. Conversely, your ‘identity’ as a real person that people can place a face to can be used to do the Kansas City shuffle.

For example, let’s look at affiliate marketing. The advice or recommendations you offer may have no professional knowledge, experience backed substance, but because you have put a photo of yourself and give a name thereby using an ‘identity’ to make people feel that you can be trusted, you can sell your wares. The ‘trust’ which is gained rather cheaply ( and before you scoff wondering if it happens at all, please do actually bother and go read up about tactics in affiliate marketing ) is used as a tool to sell substandard affiliate products.

4. Bloggers who blog anonymously

One possible reason why a person might blog anonymously is because without anonymity, they might not be able to say what they want to or should say. Another reason is what they say might taint their reputations and anonymity is a way to distant themselves from their words. There is another reason why a blogger might blog anonymously and that’s because they do not want their identity to taint their posts - let their posts be judged on their own merits.

A positive example of identity helping words: Steve Jobs identity lends his words the ability to create a reality distortion field. A lot of times the field is justified but when it isn’t, his identity helps give his marketing and promotional activities more juice.

A blogger might want his words to be judged based on their own merits. Unfortunately, humans rarely do that.

Of course, over here at The New Socialite, we are under no illusion that our identity will in any way help our words or that our words have any merit at all.

Remember people, we are just a totally trashy tabloid! Oh, and it isn’t just anonymous bloggers who write sensationalistic stuff and create link baits. We heart those bloggers!

© 2008 The New Socialite.