I'm having an online identity crisis. Things have changed so much in the 3 years since I have been out of teaching. I've been thinking about this for awhile but I am really feeling like a need a non-anonymous online presence. The braveness started with posting links to my blog on twitter then on Facebook. It was hard to admit to people I've known my whole life that I had a blog for years. I've done a pretty good job of keeping my professional and private life separate online.
If I started new blog but how often will I post to the old one? What would I post on the new blog? Do I take some old posts and put it on the new blog?
Should I just scrap my current blog? I like a place to share/vent my silliness and certainly think it would be unprofessional. About a year after I started my blog, I had hundreds of visitors a day but now on a good day I don't even have a tenth of that. Maybe it should just be contained to Facebook?
Even though I'm Facebook friends with most of my readers, you just don't have the same control. On the other hand some of my best writing on this blog was about the hockey playoffs last year. This writing is not related to education but certainly not unprofessional.
Would you (all three of my readers) be worried about being connected to me using my real name? So many bloggers I know have worked so hard to stay anonymous. What happens when one is anonymous no more? My dad and sister are anonymous bloggers but would be no more if I did not handle things carefully.
SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.
My only concerns are work related. I don't think I'm particularly offensive and it's probably not too hard to figure out who I ACTUALLY am (if you're one of those 2 people), but that said, I don't go plastering it all over the place.
ReplyDeleteI agree it's tricky. But, I think it's best to post under the assumption that the last possible person you would want to find out will and when they do you will be standing behind them at the computer for an unrelated reason.
On the point of people you've known your whole life not knowing you have a blog, I'm always disappointed when these people in my life don't care - like at all - not even, oh-really-what's-the-address?" care. Having a blog was novel for like 15 minutes. Now it's like so many snowflakes.
I prefer you to blog or email me directly. I don't have the patience for the low signal-to-noise ratio endemic to ever-newer media - often joking that I need to hire a facebook secretary.
I've invested a good deal of time cultivating go-to blogs that I know I will enjoy most of the time. I subscribe and read when they're updated. The more deliberate nature of the posting and the expectation that you should say something substantial, to me, is a welcome filter on the ever expanding firehose of shit I don't care to know about.