Online Personas

[feline]

Something that intrigues me is how people handle themselves online and their associations online. They worry about being connected to something unseemly and they worry that their professional face will end up with proverbial pie on it because of something one of their friends said

Comments

[triplee]

Amen. This whole "people look at Facebook when they hire you!" nonsense is mostly a 6 o' clock news scare tactic for old people who don't understand the internet. I don't want to work anywhere so uptight that who I am in "public"[0] is a problem.

So yeah, if it's not something I'd tell a stranger in the elevator, it doesn't go online. Anything else I don't DO or talk about in front of people who aren't close enough to me to know not to take pictures or blab. Period.

Much easier to live that way.

[0] Public here means anything acquaintances and family sees. Close friends obviously know more.

[rainbow]

YES.

i like being me online. i do keep fb and dw/lj a bit separate, but not that much, and it would be pretty easy to connect the 2, i think, since i link to my website from both *g*

yet i've had people who are simply horrified that i use my real name online because it's such a terrible, stupid things to do. bwuh?

instead i just don't talk about things i wouldn't want anyone to read, which seems to me to be healthier.

[staxxy]

exactly. I have been keeping things associated with my legal (and therefore professional) name separate from anything I do *socially* since 1990, or earlier in some cases. But, that said, I am who I am online or off.

There are a *lot* of people who take the anonymity of the internet to extremes they would *never* acknowledge even considering (let alone actually *having* in their personalities) in person. I think a lot of them are the ones that are concerned about connections to their real life activities.

Granted, there are one or two people I know who gave up modeling, or burlesque, or other activities that undermine them being seen as serious career women. And, yeah, it is all women... that's obnoxious that none of the men I know have needed to. I hate that women are allowed to be beautiful and fabulous *or* be serious in business. But still not both. argh. (also, argh, did not mean to tangent on this).

[feline]

Yours is an actual valid reason rather than trying to hide the fact that you like sci fi books, roleplaying games, or other nerd-like pursuits. People over react to the simple things and think they need to hide them. That's the superficial that I refer to.

As someone who has worked closely with HR, I know that once a person finds something they don't like that ought to be illegal to fire or illegal to not call back for another interview, they can usually dig to find enough things to legally support their argument. As sad as it is, it's a fact. I never talk about it here, but even at my current job I have dealt with backlash from what I do online in my spare time and on the weekends. Once again, nearly impossible to prove. I can see your point, but I stand by mine in the case of people who fear others finding out their sci fi reading list.