Some Notes on Anonymity

...or of never writing things that may get me fired, lynched, or otherwise barred from the hallowed halls of academia.

After an eight month hiatus, of sorts, from blogging, I've decided to pick up the torch once more and march on into the dark, scary night with my fellow-dissertation-writing bloggers. I need an outlet - a space to write and ramble and occasionally rant. That being said, how exactly does one do all of these things, when one is dedicated to the premise of anti-anonymity??

To be clear: my philosophy does NOT stem from a place of holier-than-thou-ness. No indeed-y. My reasons for keeping my nymity is three-fold:

1. My computer-esque-ish husband assures me that absolutely NOTHING is every really anonymous on the nasty 'ole www (competent computer savvy any-old-bodies can, with little effort, apparently "discover" the owner/author of anything - even when these sites/blogs/etc are hosted through blogspot or similar freebie domains). Who knew?

Thinking I was anonymous, only to find that I was not after all - well, that is just too horrifying to consider. And then...

2. While I may agree with many of the issues my "favorite" bloggers discuss related to their time in academia, their stresses as they pursue the PhD - tenure - better jobs - and students who care, that doesn't necessarily mean that I am interested in starting such vitriolic discourse as to render my own "good name" at risk... not to mention, while what I may privately think may always be a mystery to the outside world, what I write (and publish!) is much less indisputable (umm....so, the question begs: why write it down at all??). Though she often fails to live this mantra in her OWN life, my mother has always told me "if you can't say something nice about someone (re: something), don't say anything at all. Or kick 'em in the nuts."

And then, finally, my own pedagogy ultimately refuses me access to these often hilarious conversations...

3. I like my job, and any moaning that I may do about bosses, students, or my work load, I do it in full view of my colleagues and friends. I simply do not need to write it down too. That being said, I CHOSE this life, this dissertation topic, this career -- and most of the time, I like it. I like my colleagues; I like my students. And the things I don't like - well, they are disliked by most everyone: inner-office squabbles and back-stabbing among GTAs, departmental politics that leave unsuspecting PhD candidates in the middle of bigger problems we didn't even cause, change to anything in our own personal-academic status quo (desks rearranged without warning, for example, is enough to send most of us over the edge) --- see? Nothing original here.

When I have the occasional bad day (and apparently these moments occur much less for me than they do for my favorite blogsters), I remind myself about what my life WAS - and (even when it's at its worst now) I remember how it is SO very much better than what it might be - if I hadn't made these major choices about my life all those years ago when I sacrified to go back to grad school.

See - this would be the ending to ANY ugly rant I'd ever post, and I suspect it would get old --fast.

After all, people (in general) don't like a Pollyanna - even when she speaks the "happy" truth. We assume he/she has something to hide, is secretly manic-depressive, or completely psychotic.

And then, of course, some people just like to procrastinate, complain, and remind themselves of all the ways they are better than the next guy. And, of course, most of the time, these posts are hilarious (hello - just look at my favorite blogs here to see what I mean! I love this stuff...), but they just aren't for me (the exception being my position as voyeur, naturally).

So, now - that being said, I promise that I won't rant about the job, the department, my colleagues, or the students I teach ----- so I should be in the clear, right?

Um - no.

Because see - here's the thing. People may not like a Pollyanna, but the second you even appear to be negative or dismissive or "rant-like" in any way, you are a bad, bad person. We laugh at you; we laugh with you, and we may even shake our head in appreciation that you somehow managed to so "get it," but we don't want to know you - not really. It's just better if you stay hidden the dark and protect us from that certainty that the "REAL WORLD" harbors the same people we encounter in the virtual one.

All of this is interesting to me, because my PhD work is Rhetoric. I am interested in cultural communication, and the "blogging academic community"simply fascinates me. All this anonymity from people who stand up in front of students everyday, give lectures, attend conferences, and who, historically, have been willing (and able) to stand up to administration and pushy graduate students --- BUT, in the virtual world they feel safer behind such monikers as "Dean Dad" or "Bitch, PhD." Ironically, often what they write is not especially controversial or shocking. And aside from the occasional "F-bomb" here and there, I can't imagine that they wouldn't share much of this same information with their students, their colleagues, and even the scary 'ole administration (who probably wouldn't care to read any of it in the first place). The number of views and the plethora of comments PROVES that they strike a nerve to their (equally anonymous) virtual colleagues, so why not proudly put your name on what you write? Is it the pressure of the unimaginably gigantic audience who will/could be "watching"? Or is it something else altogether?

Maybe it's just me, but I have yet to meet an academic who is good at keeping his or her opinions private. We chose academia for a myriad of reasons - but one thing, in my experience at least, is that we all do have opinions, and most of us aren't afraid to use them...

So what does this discussion all come back to? I think it's a simple as FEAR. We are scared to death that we will be misunderstood, repeated out of context, misquoted, misrepresented, or just flat out disliked.

One thing I have learned is that people ARE going to hate you. You can't help it. No matter how nice and generous you are - no matter how kind to puppies, babies, and homeless people you may be -- some people JUST WON'T LIKE YOU. And they won't explain themselves (Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsey Lohan - just to name a few- could take a page here).

Bottom line? If you write ANYTHING down (yes, even if you are a Pollyanna), someone will misunderstand your ideas and your words. Get over it. And if you have hate to spew (most of my favs don't, BTW -- which is my point here), be man (ahem - or woman) enough to put your name on your work. And sleep easy in the knowledge that if what you write on a blog could get you fired, influence your bid for tenure, or keep you from your dream position - my bet is that you didn't have a real chance in the first place. People dislike you in the real world, even if they applaud your "boldness" (anonymously) in the virtual one. Like my friend Rochelle says, be careful about anything you "put in the universe." You can delete a particularly hateful posted you crazily wrote after a bad day, but this is PUBLIC discourse, folks. Even deleted, it's IN THE UNIVERSE. People read it, someone copied it, and karma has it in her storage banks.

So, I'll be cautious about what I blog, but I won't watch every single thing I write (even if that were possible), because I know you can please some of the people some of the time -- but you can't please everyone all of the time. I won't post anonymously, because I believe you have to always stand beside your ideas and opinions -- even if that means apologizing, claiming ignorance, drunkenness, or youth.

It's a small step... especially in a new, bold world where being anonymous is the "norm." It's just a blog, after all. What could it really matter?

And that's why I'll sign my name...

DONNA