Antinonymous

Dear Editor, I was surprised how visceral of a response I had today after reading some posts online penned by Anonymous. I know that there are many reasons that have been used over the last few hundred years for people to use Anonymous as a pen name. To try and understand why this bothered me [...] The post Antinonymous appeared first on The Equity .

Dear Editor, I was surprised how visceral of a response I had today after reading some posts online penned by Anonymous. I know that there are many reasons that have been used over the last few hundred years for people to use Anonymous as a pen name. To try and understand why this bothered me so much I did some internet work on how it has been used.

I knew some quite well-known literature has been published with Anonymous as the pen name. Beowulf, One Thousand and One Nights and Frankenstein were all originally published under Anonymous. Mary Shelley’s name was added to later editions.

None of the posts I have been reading rise anywhere near to the level of these masterpieces. In 1996, Primary Colors , a bestselling satirical novel about a presidential campaign, was originally published anonymously but it was later revealed to be written by a journalist. I saw the movie based on this book, nothing I have been reading rises to this level either.

I dug a bit deeper to look at why people keep using the pseudonym. Safety and privacy are common reasons cited by some