anonymity, gender, and Facebook group hell
There's something about having an anonymous presence on the web that I was really after before I stumbled into the indie web. It's nice having part of me that doesn't get indexed (yet) in a search from an employer or attached to how family sees me. Social media is a flattening to the least common and inoffensive denominator - especially something like Facebook where I had to be pleasant enough to my family and coworkers and the thousands of people I never met in dog training groups, etc.
I don't even know how to get into the Facebook dog training groups I was in - but in 2017, but I had a reactive 120lb shepherd, a literal nightmare, and these places were helpful at first. Instead of turning to anonymous forums to solve our collective problems - having angry-ass dogs - we brought our photos with weird little frames that said "Happy Easter!" and "not my president!" and "He is risen." And our jobs, locations, and public posts. And then you would DM with someone who also couldn't stand that mod and then you would friend request each other. And then you could see the alliances in the groups based on who was friends with who else.
And then you would post an article about, you know, an attempted coup in our country on your own damn page and check your phone to see the goddamn dog group people who you stupidly accepted friend requests from are screeching in all caps about the Kraken and Q and what not. And then that emboldens your aunt to like it and say something deeply unforgettably racist in support of the dog lady. And now all hell has broken loose because you're not going to let the goddamn dog group people ruin your real in-the-flesh Thanksgiving coming up, and they have.
I mean hope none of this is too familiar, but I hear about these weird dynamics in mom groups (the scariest radicalization force in America). My sister-in-law was telling me about doctor mom group drama and paranoia. These groups niche in every direction.
With one "face" to show the world and please everyone, you're forced to either flatten to be palatable or deal with conflict. Or just no longer use that project for the things it originally promised to solve - like finding advice in a dog group or keeping up with your aunt. Who both got radicalized in yet another Facebook group.
I think the other appealing angle for me is the lack of required gender performance with online anonymity. I am cis, and year after year I feel more comfortable in more "classic" expressions of my gender as the growing spectrum of gender expression makes how I present feel more liberatory and less compulsory. Rising tides lift all ships.
My work and hobbies are pretty gendered, which is particularly ridiculous. I teach art to mostly kids, and I love shepherds and planted tanks - two weirdly masc-coded worlds. I am always out of place in one world or another, and always interested in how I perceive gender in others. I know my thoughts and opinions - when paired with just my face alone - are taken with consideration to my gender expression. And sometimes I want my thoughts to just be my thoughts.
I realized as I moved from Facebook (ditched in 2020) to Reddit that I might be able to stalk people's post histories, it wasn't nearly the same level of flattening as Facebook. People had alt accounts. People might assume gender based on context/which sub you are in, but not on your own post in a new account. You could say that the French toast at that one place your friend works up is not worth the $12 without it being a whole thing. You could say that you did like the kind of cringy stand-up without the dog group lady saying something about adrenochrome.
To have your words taken on their own merit with an anonymous account is to actually be seen in some ways. To not be someone else's story of the other parts of you that aren't for everyone to see all at once.