Context
The catalyst for this post was my most recent Introductions Over Coffee #10 post. There I discuss why new bloggers should use a name. That got me thinking about the nature of identity. In particular, why we feel its necessary for others to have names, why it might be difficult to pick a name and the likelihood of exclusion as a result. These are the themes I’m going to explore today.
Understanding Identity
For this post, identity refers to the name a blogger adopts within their blog and in communications. You will undoubtedly have seen people post in your comments, but you don’t know what to call them. When I launched my own blog, Curiosities, Castles and Coffee Shops, I failed to give myself a name. It quickly became clear that people didn’t know what to call me. At that point I decided to use my own name for my blog. Now we’re going to look at some of the concepts behind identity and understand the resistance to picking a name.
Social Constructivism
Don’t be put off by this fancy sounding title. Social constructivism theory revolves around the idea of belonging to a group – in this case our WP Community. As a community, we have “norms” that we consider as acceptable behaviour. Behaviour that we expect from our members. Members need an identity/name so they can engage with other members and so they know how to address you. This is one of these norms.
I would imagine that most bloggers want to be successful, and that includes seeing their website grow. A major factor in that success is likely to be how well they engage with us, the blogging community. Therefore to be successful, bloggers should have a name that can be used with and by the community.
Consequences of not having an online identity
There are quite a few negative effects for the blogger in not adopting an online identity or name. As discussed above, without a name to identify them, the blogger is unlikely to fit in with the WP Community. As the blogger doesn’t fit it, they are unlikely to develop relationships and make friends. Without the formation of these relationships, the blogger will not be able to promote their blog as effectively. Following on from the above points, it is possible that the blogger will be or may feel excluded and marginalised. That being the case, their blog will not grow as much and they may give up, demotivated by the lack of success.
As we can see, there are a lot of reasons why bloggers should create an identity and give themselves a name online. That said, lets now look at some of the reasons that this might not happen.
Reasons for not adopting an identity
- It is possible the blogger is happy writing and posting and doesn’t want to be part of the blogging community.
- The blogger prefers to remain anonymous, either because they don’t want to fit in or they can act without the inhibitions they may have in real life.
- If the blogger is part of multiple online communities each of which have their own norms, the blogger could struggle to resolve the conflicted identities required by the groups.
- Fear could be a factor for some bloggers. Depending on the situation, the blogger may fear discrimination, harassment or bullying etc if they identify themselves. In this case, they would be protecting themselves by not taking a name.
- The blogger could be experiencing something called existential angst. This is a fear or negative reaction about the freedom and responsibility of creating an online identity. They may be feeling overwhelmed and are unable to make a decision about their online identity.
- Finally, the blogger could be experimenting with different identities, to find the one that represents them best. In this situation, though, I would expect to see the blogger constantly changing their name as they experiment.
Given the reasons that a blogger may not adopt an identity, we can see that its not always simply that the blogger hasn’t picked a name. Maybe as bloggers ourselves, we need to think about this when talking to others without an individual name.
Final thoughts
Online communities, such as the WP community we’re all part of, expect new members to have an online identity. The benefits of this are that the new bloggers are welcomed, encouraged and, as they integrated into the community, their blogs will become more successful too. However, there may be a range of reasons holding these people back, preventing them from adopting an online persona. There is a risk that because of these factors, we could exclude new members. We should encourage them to adopt a name for themselves, but recognise there may be real factors preventing them.
Do we have an obligation to ensure our new bloggers feel included? If they take on an identity, and engage with the community, they are included. However, as I’ve indicated, there are valid reasons they may struggle with identity. In those cases, do we have an obligation to ensure they don’t feel excluded?