A few weeks ago, I talked about why anonymous blogging just doesn’t work. A commenter said “If a person cares anything about their future in the legal profession, maybe anonymous blogging is the way to go.” Now, there are a whole host of underlying assumptions to that statement. One, of course, is the assumption that you won’t get caught. Another is that when you are eventually caught, that your new employer won’t fire you. So, yeah, sure, blogging anonymously might help you, at least temporarily, avoid some consequences… but I prefer a different approach…
When I bought this domain back in 2003, I had been blogging for over two years. Neither prior to that, nor since, have I tried to conceal my name, despite knowing quite well that a search for my name would turn up my site. When I moved to PeteHoliday.com, I made explicit what I had been implicit for years: if someone is looking for me, they can find me here.
I write with that in mind. I know, first of all, that any potential employer is going to find the site. I also know that once someone has hired me, they’ll probably continue to check back occasionally. That knowledge or, rather, not living in the delusion that I will never be found, keeps my writing in check. I don’t post anything that I won’t mind having my name attached to, and in the history of this blog, I cannot remember deleting a post.
That doesn’t mean I still agree with everything that I’ve ever written, of course, but I don’t consider anything so bad that I would want to distance myself from it any more than the distance that time itself imposes.
I am not shocked when it comes up in interviews, and it has. That hasn’t kept me from getting job offers. Why not? I’m certainly not shy or coy about my opinions. I generally stand up for myself, sometimes more forcefully than necessary.
The thing to remember is that most employers are not so interested in your personal opinions. They’re concerned about their business’ reputation with its target market and they’re concerned about their private information getting out. I have a public blog, but I very, very rarely blog about work, I don’t name names (employers, bosses, co-workers, etc), and I am generally very hush-hush about the goings-on there. I’m not going to cause any business any trouble with my blog because their name won’t be brought up here, and the things that happen at the office will stay at the office.
“But Pete,” you’ll exclaim, “some employers might discriminate against you based on your political opinions, your brash tone, or your really childish artwork!”
And you’re right. They very well might, and that’s okay. I don’t believe in getting the “best job” (whatever that means) at all costs. I want to work for a company/firm/etc that wants to hire an employee like me. If some company thinks “God, I don’t want him running around this office!” then it’s probably better to find that out before I get the job than after the fact for two reasons: first, even if they never find my blog, they’re getting the same person that blogs here… so if they don’t like the blog, they probably won’t like the person. Second, if (when) they eventually would find my blog, I don’t want them looking for some way to get rid of me and they’re going to feel betrayed, even if they wouldn’t have felt that way in absence of the anonymity.
This is an attitude that a certain group of people here at law school don’t understand. They want the “best” job that they can get, regardless of how they fit in there, regardless of working environment. They define “best” to be the biggest firm, most prestigious clerkship, the highest salaries, etc… and if that’s what you think, if that’s what you want, that’s great, I hope you get it… but the answer to the problem is not blogging anonymously. The answer is not blogging at all.
To my way of thinking, if you can’t attach your name to it, you have no business saying it.
February 13th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Damn straight!
February 13th, 2007 at 12:59 am
I gave up trying to remain search-engine anonymous for exactly one of the reasons you list here. If a potential employer doesn’t want to hire me because of things I’ve written on my blog, I probably wouldn’t be happy working there anyway.
February 13th, 2007 at 1:16 am
Eventually, you will miss out on a job you actually do want. Happens to everyone, but even then the “If they don’t want me I don’t want them” philosophy is a good one. Life is, after all, short. We get one go at it and the ability to feel free in one’s thoughts and words is actually worth a lot of time and money.
February 13th, 2007 at 3:53 am
You said it!
February 13th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Corey nails it as usual…
February 14th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Personally, I’ve always thought it was a bit hypocritical or even cowardly to blog anonymously. If you’re so embarrassed or ashamed to be saying something, maybe you shouldn’t be saying it!
Same philosophy for commenting anonymously.
It’s sort of an accompaniment to what everyone’s mom always used to say “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say it at all.” Rather “If you don’t want anyone to know you’re the one saying this, maybe you should keep it to yourself.”
February 14th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I agree in general, although sometimes with commenting I can see the point… the one circumstance I’ve found where anonymity for commenting is helpful is when the recipient would focus on WHO said it instead of WHAT they said… and an anonymous comment would take away that angle… but it’s a very small set of circumstances.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Ooh, that’s a good point Pete!
February 16th, 2007 at 2:10 am
As I would expect from you, a very well reasoned and grounded approach. It isn’t the approach I have taken, but then again when I was interviewing with law firms, there wasn’t any internet to speak of in 1991 (argh!), so there wasn’t so much the need to keep a “clean” reputation because that was all there would be to base an evaluation on. I think your approahc is a smart one for someone of your age and the place you are in your life.
That said, because of the kind of work I do, I do keep a lower profile. Of course, there aren’t a lot of people with my first name running around the internet, so there is some exposure, but I change domain names every time I become Googleable by last name. Of course, now that my last name is the Jewish equivalent of Smith — I’m much harder to find. I even registered my domain under my husband’s name — which is even more common than mine.
Still, I keep what I do now to a reasonable level that if someone work related did find it, it wouldn’t be too devastating. I also have my personal lawsuit to worry about now, and that makes me more guarded than anything else.
Anyway, I’ve rambled enough in your comments — all I really wanted to get across is that there are a lot of differing considerations for people, and while I think you’ve done a great job doing what feels right to you, other people will have differing views that aren’t necessarily wrong.
February 16th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
“the one circumstance I’ve found where anonymity for commenting is helpful is when the recipient would focus on WHO said it instead of WHAT they said… and an anonymous comment would take away that angle…”
Wouldn’t that be the circumstance where honesty would be MORE important. For example, I would never say something anonymous on here because we have a history of fighting, and you should have that relevant information when evaluating the opinion.
February 18th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
No. Who says something is rarely very important. What they say is either true or it’s not… so if there’s a situation where the content is important, but the person is likely to respond more to the who and not the what, it probably makes more sense to be anonymous… if you’re really interested in the person hearing what you’re saying instead of being interested in saying it in your own name.
February 20th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I think who says something is usually more important than what is said, Pres. Bush calling for an Iraq solution means something entirely different than Nancy Pelosi, even though they may use the same words. And even if they are both commenting on something that they would define the same way, it’s still different. Bush can ask for more than Pelosi, can, for example. Or Bush may be referencing something he’d said earlier, whereas Pelosi may be referencing something else entirely. Context is key to managing information.
A guy I refused to date telling me I’m not cute, for example, could be chalked up to bitterness. Whereas a guy who is explaining why he doesn’t want to date me would be saying something entirely different. Context.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
a. People “calling for” things is not the same as fact-based statements for which the truth can be ascertained, but even that who does it only matters in discussions about them, not whether or not what they’re calling for is necessary. If Pelosi and Bush say the same thing, they’re both either right or wrong… being President doesn’t make Bush right, being a woman doesn’t make Pelosi right, who they are has nothing to do with the accuracy of their statements.
b. Why you’d care why any guy thinks you’re not cute is beyond me. Also, whether or not you’re “cute” is a matter of opinion, not fact, and one on which reasonable people can differ.
c. Bottom line: for most situations, knowing who said something is important only to sate the recipient’s own curiosity, not for determining the truth of what was said.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
But Pete, there is no truth. Most things in life come down to subjective value judgments or statements. Even the assertion, “This is a chair,” depends on langauge of the speaker, shared definition of a chair as something you sit in, and so on. There is nothing you can say that everyone will agree is true. And nothing that you can know is actually true. That’s why journalists don’t even try to say, “Here is a true narration of events.” Nope. You ATTRIBUTE EVERYTHING. “This guy, who was standing here, said he saw this…” And so on. The journalist who doesnn’t attribute, and pretends that what he has heard or has seen is all there is to it, is an idiot. Or a highly respected member of Fox News.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Blah blah blah.
The point you conspicuously fail to notice is that it doesn’t matter what is actually true. All that matters, for the purposes of the recipient, is what he or she thinks is true. So if someone comes here and comments on a post and says “I think you’re overreacting because of ___, ___, and ___,” it doesn’t matter who they are. I can evaluate what I think the truth of their statement is without knowing who they are.
Sure, I want to know who said it… but typically people just want to know where criticism comes from so they can find some reason to discount it. Anonymous comments have to be considered for their truth, not their source, and that’s the benefit of them (and it’s also one reason why journalists sources are protected).
You can just leave all this philosophical BS about “there is no chair” at the door. Not only does it not suit you, it’s really not even germane to the point.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Good point about wanting to discount the criticism. I usually discount people who remain anonymous in order to say something critical, though.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Knowing who asserted facts helps the reader to determine if that person was in a position to know the facts or is just talking out his ass. I can’t think of a mechanism through which attribution would help evaluate an argument. Some might use it as a shortcut for actually evaluating an argument, however. (i.e., prejudice).
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
There are many other reasons to write anonymously. For example, when you write anonymously, you can give yourself a cooler name than your parents did. Or you can write anonymously in order to write out ideas you don’t necessarily agree with, but you want to see how they write. It can be like a stage name, or a character. Like the difference between Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report, and Stephen Colbert when he’s buying groceries. Some people like to mark the distinction with a different identity.
For myself, I chose to write about sex. I didn’t want my parents to google my name and find my blog. I also wanted to avoid stalkers. People knowing who I am and where I live, when I (at first, anyway) made an effort to hide it, means that they are a lot more serious about finding me out than a casual reader would be, and that they put the effort into it to find out for themself could indicate that they are more dangerous than, say, a reader who knows I’m Jane Smith from Detroit because I said so in a blog post.