still watching for a snake, but in the meantime

Randomly, Child finally linked me to his tumblr account, but only with the promise I'd never follow or reblog him as long as we both live. It was extraordinarily, almost freakishly, adorable to watch him squee over an entire team of soccer players (I think?), and today, he tried to talk me into getting Converse shoes to match his.

Reproduction of actual conversation today at Academy:
"Because," he said seriously, "then I can show you to my friends."

"You said your friends think I'm awesome already," I replied, confused. "Because I'm tall. They call me Gigantor, which thanks, I do know you came up with that name."

"No, they think you're an awesome person because you are and [because of] fandom. Not how you dress."

"...how many of your friends know my username?"

Nothing about this conversation was comfortable, but I'm not sure whether I'm upset because his friends know my screennames or because he criticized my dress sense.

This is the unacknowledged downside of your username becoming your online identity and literally cannot imagine getting another one anywhere. It really makes your son's fanfic-writing (Christ) friends find you easily, and now anyone who follows me on tumblr is Possibly One of Them.

However: I honestly think half the reason Facebook makes me uncomfortable is that my RL name is there and while online, it feels like I'm pretending to be someone else. Someone boring, by the way: if you friended me on Facebook, you may notice my lack of content. Because it's the wrong goddamn name. Facebook even has its very own email account attached to it unrelated to my other ones, because again, not really me and I'm vaguely uncomfortable checking it.

Comments

[icarus]

I know what you mean. My Facebook account is really some sort of mask, so much so that I don't worry about my tutoring students reading it because, really, if they want that many cat pictures, animal rescue reposts, and Democrat info, god help them. I wouldn't.

In other news, I was talking to a Buddhist nun who'd just finished her degree in India ... and mentioned Harry Potter, then fanfic writing, and then discovered that she wrote HP fic (evil!Harry) and another nun I knew was her beta.

This makes my month.

We may never discuss Buddhism or Tibetan again.

[seperis]

*dies* Okay, that's kind of the perfect storm of awesome. I'm now vaguely tempted to hit up the testers with subtle leading questions using the medium of Teen Wolf, Harry Potter, and Supernatural.

[icarus]

She walked away shaking her head, in total disbelief that we had this in common.

I think I'll never see a word of her fic though. She's one of those "I'll never post a WIP and after ten million aeons it's still not Ready for the light of day" people.

[alizarin_nyc]

if they want that many cat pictures, animal rescue reposts, and Democrat info

That's my exact Facebook, right there.

[icarus]

Yeah, fairly easy to do. Share, share, share, share....

[azurelunatic]

I have a Facebook. It's also the Wrong Name. Though I have my Wrong Name email set to forward to my real name email.

[seperis]

*dies laughing*

[azurelunatic]

I'm just glad that I've never emailed a customer from azurelunatic@ anything.

[out_there]

I'm not sure whether I'm upset because his friends know my screennames or because he criticized my dress sense.


If it was me, it'd definitely be the former. Which might be weird given that my mom knows my AO3/DW username -- but at the same time, she's not at all motivated to actually click onto any links to read anything, so it's a weirdly safe gesture of trust.

[seperis]

I do have the protection of being A Parent, but I'm not sure how much with his friends. He has weird, weird friends.

[kira_dark_wing]

... his friends know your screen-names? That's just creepy. Not even my boyfriend knows my on-line identity... at least not my blogging and fandom berting identity. But yeah, totally with you on the facebook thing. I sometimes log on to facebook and just look at my profile, and all I can think is 'Oh Dear... What the FUCK were you thinking?'

[seperis]

He told at least one girl, who wants me to beta her fic, because she recognized 'seperis', which is when it hit Child, I think, what the potential was here. I don't think it occurred to him his age group would have read my fic, and i broke down for him how I had twelve year olds send me feedback sometimes.

Dude, if I was on ff.net or in Teen Wolf? I wouldn't sleep.

[nagasvoice]

I got the creeps about Facebook when people at work started talking about stalking other folks and outside business people actually hunting for them by name. Bleargh. I mean, some folks post pix of their kids and vacation and pets etc., and I just cannot do that if I might have industry people poking into my bidness.
So I ended up not making personal entries, but filling it up with as much factual political stuff as I could. They'll get a faceful of stats and links to do something about various environmental and social justice concerns, which is pretty darn personal in a much more mental way, but I'm willing to debate on those if somebody questions it.

[seperis]

Ooooh, good call! I like how you deal!

[nagasvoice]

Why, thank you! Plus, I figure if it can be a data resource for those folks who do know me IRL, that sure doesn't hurt either. Goodness knows there's enough ridiculous untruth out there in the political arena, and I try to use Snopes on things that sound fishy--but I also have folks on my flist who will call me on it if I've reposted something without checking and it gets a negative on Snopes. I like that, it helps me keep it honest.
I was a bit concerned I was going to end up with opinion flame wars and trolls and etc as I've seen on some other posters' timelines, but so far no problem, not sure why--maybe because I'm not putting out that much in the way of personal essays myself, I'm using other people's news and opinion pieces and reporting, with some minor opinions when I'm commenting to explain or note connections to other reposts I've done. One of the things I like about lj and DW is that you can give multiple links on a topic and build a larger piece from that set of relationships, explaining multiple logic points and associations.
I can only do one link in serial on FB. IT's quite limiting.

[ellixis]

Facebook informed me that it did not think that my name was really Nunya Bidness. It did, however, accept Iam A'Nalias without complaint.

[seperis]

...oh my God, that's awesome.

[luminosity]

You know, I feel the same way about my identity. My real name isn't on Facebook, but Luminosity's there. My real name is just... it's like something from the Old Country.

FWIW, my kids knew all about my fannishness because I felt that I couldn't hide or dilute that part of my life, especially from them, and I was treated to my 12-year-old (at the time) telling one of her friends, "Yeah, my mom writes gay smut."

Ah, children. Bless them.

ETA: Oh yeah. ytisonimul.tumblr.com

[seperis]

I have two years until I can bring Child to VVC (it's 18 up still, right?) and he's so looking forward to it and meeting some of the vidders he loves. Apparently a famous youtube vidder came this year? He threw a FIT at me, even though I told him months ago I couldnt' go this year because we were preemptively informed about early August leave this year. Apparently, I was suppposed to get his autograph or something, it was weird.

[truelove]

Well, now I'm terrible curious who the famous youtube vidder in question was.