pseudonyms, personas, anonymity, etc.

I’ve been thinking a little bit about the pseudonym, specifically in relation to women writers, even more specifically I guess in the alt lit community.  Everyone has already said something about Marie Calloway and their feelings on her use of a pseudonym, etc. but she’s not the only one, yeah?  And obviously guys write under assumed names too, but Frank Hinton, xTx, Gabby Gabby?  Are pseudonyms more of a female thing?  I was wondering.  I mean, I’m using a pseudonym too, but other than “my real last name is boring” and “I’d prefer if my parents didn’t find this if they google me” I didn’t put much thought into why, specifically.

There’s the basic attraction, as Roxane Gay describes here (that then discusses MC and “Adrien Brody” specifically but we don’t need to rehash that)

“And there’s the pseudonym. Writing pseudonymously is seductive. You can say whatever you want without consequence because no one knows who you really are. That freedom makes it easy to be daring, to write openly or even transgressively. Some of my favorite writers do so pseudonymously.” (source)

And yeah, ok I agree with that.  But there’s also this element of “persona”.  Alter-ego, whatever.  I’m not saying everyone that writes with a pseudonym is doing Bowie/Ziggy or Gaga/Stefani stuff here.  But we can’t dismiss the pseudonym use of women in alt lit like anon hate on tumblr either.

Gabby Gabby said this about her use of a pseudonym:

“I was once told that it was important to ‘actively cultivate a mystique’ and so I took that to heart. That’s why I don’t write under my full name. Someone actually asked me on twitter the other day if my first and last names were really both Gabby haha. I think it’s really important not only to put out content that I’m passionate about but I also really want people to read that content. So, with that in mind, I try to cultivate this experience around my poetry and writing to really get people excited about it.” (source)

And I think a lot of people can identify with that.  Ok, at least I can.  I like “mystique” because it’s not implying a separation between writer and pseudonym; that’s what the whole “anonymous” thing would be about.  The “mystique” of the pseudonym qualifies the writer; it doesn’t separate.

I also found this relevant:

“I think there’s a whole other revolution of l’écriture feminine happening on the Internet—I know that seems hyperbolic, but I really do believe it. The blog is such a fascinating, confessional, diaristic, form, that has something in common with the notebook form, Camus’ notebooks or Elizabeth Hardwick’s fictional notebook Sleepless Nights, or Montaigne’s longform essays. I’m thinking less of Marie Calloway and more the notebooking you do, or the subsubculture of writers who keep personal literary blogs that comment often on my own blog, Bhanu Kapil or Jennifer Lowe or Suzanne Scanlon. I think there is something particularly feminine about this form—also that we can publish ourselves, and that it’s uncensored except what we choose to censor, that we can be pseudonymous or develop different literary personas. This sort of blogging is part process, part performance art. And I would connect it in a lineage to girls writing in their Tumblrs, and before that Livejournals.” (I found this on tumblr)

I will forever think my “friends only” livejournal entries are far more interesting than any of my public entries.  Eventually, I’d like to bring some of that “quality” to this blog, and I’ll be able to do that in part because of anonymity, in part because of this persona thingy I’m working on.  I had another really awesome quotation saved in my “likes” on tumblr and now it’s GONE and that’s really upsetting because it compared the confessional writing that women are kind of owning right now with men owning the obscene back in the day.  I think it also mentioned (lamented?) when girls become older and put all of these confessional things in “friends only” entries, because this kind of writing isn’t “allowed” to be public, or something.  And if it wasn’t in that quotation then it was in another saved “like” from tumblr that is also GONE and I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY POSTS ARE DISAPPEARING.  Anyway.  Basically, women bringing this kind of confessional writing back into the open is kind of a self-aware naiveté (oh look it’s my bff metamodernism) and that is a really cool thing.  I don’t have a neat way of tying this all together right now, (sorry) but I feel like this is a topic I’ll return to at some point.  Also if anyone knows what missing quotation(s) I’m talking about from my extremely vague descriptions, could you let me know?  It would be appreciated.