DIALOGUE: Pseudonym or not pseudonym
A new week, a new dialogue between Lenka and Raya. Now in question, the concept of ”pseudonym”.
A pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.
The term is derived from the Greek ψευδώνυμον (pseudṓnymon), literally “false name”, from ψεῦδος (pseûdos), “lie, falsehood” and ὄνομα (ónoma), “name”.
What’s the point of choosing one? Can we stay true/honest using a “false name”? And many more questions…
LENKA
I have a more urgent question.
What do you think is better for an artist? To use a pseudonym or his/her own name?
I dont believe completely in that art is nowadays more or less an ego adventure, but I believe in it from a great part. So if you use a pseudonym, is it like you stand against your ego and do something for the art? Or is it just, oppositely, a way how to focus attention of others more to yourself? By adding this fake mystery to yourself?
Because eventually, every pseudonym (or majority) will be deciphered and the author knows it.
Is it even possible to stay a secret? There’s always someone who wants to find out who is the person behind a pseudonym. In a way, if you do it to please these people, it’s not so egoistic. It’s for their pleasure and fun…
RAYA
I like urgent questions!
I chose a pseudonym because, in my mind, my “real name” is my social name. My identity as a person in a society which aims to provide physical survival. That was the very first point of communities, right?
The pseudonym is the identity of my quest. All i do, call it art or not, is motivated by a quest. And this is more about mental or spiritual survival.Does it make sense? What are your feelings about pseudonyms? Do you want to choose one?
LENKA
What you say makes sense.
So you kind of divide your social self and your seeking/artistic self? How exactly do you understand it?
Do you think there is a point in pseudonyms? What do you think they serve for?I’ve been thinking about a pseudonym for a long years. Discussing with myself if I want or don’t want to be using one some day.
The idea of using one intrigues me. I see the point of pseudonym in the fact that when you are using one and become famous in some area, people don’t recognize you by name. They can by a picture or so (if you are not completely anonymous…) but not by your name.
But then again, there are pseudonyms which come from the names your friends call you. I like people calling me Joey and I happily use that as the first name of my pseudonym all over the internet.
Sometimes the one using it can pick something that sounds better for the ear than his/her real name… can put some message in the name. He/She can make his own pseudonym a little piece of art, a little piece of self-expression.
From this point of view, I really like the idea I’d be using one.But then on the other side… I was born as me and ‘me’ is called XY, it is my name. MY name.
I tend to think in this way: when someone asks me “who are you?” i guess the best reply is my name. Because it contains all of me. Even if I was using a pseudonym, my real name still contains also my pseudonym identity.It makes me think that the most honest way to behave towards the world is use your real name.
But to tell the truth, when I see an author with a pseudonym, it catches my attention better. When it sounds kinda… unusual, that is. When it doesn’t, it makes me wonder why would the person use that name instead of their own.What do you think?
RAYA
I totally relate to your questions. And i agree with you on “the most honest way to behave towards the world is use your real name.”
At first i didn’t want to use a pseudonym because of this feeling of being honest or not.
I ended choosing one because it became obvious that what i was/wanted to do for a living couldn’t go with what i was doing as a passion. So i came up with a pseudonym that, i hope, is the reflection of my identity as a writer/painter/etc.
So, i guess, it’s a mask more than an identity. What is real anyway? Fact is that, sometimes, you have to hide your social identity if you want to keep doing what you want or have to do to survive. I wouldn’t be real is i had to choose one of these lifes over the other one.What’s the points of pseudonyms? Isn’t it more about some kind of resistance? They stand for something what couldn’t exist without it. Isn’t it another image you can paint of yourself? Like a selfportrait…
LENKA
Selfportrait…. maybe in a way. Hm.
Using it is definitely so tempting for me.I’d like if what I want to do for living and what I am doing as a passion could coexist. Maybe it can coexist in the fact I’m doing the both under the same name.
What about you, readers: do you use a pseudonym? Why? Or why not?
Also another point, one’s Self is not a whole and homogeneous entity, it’s a collection of masks, ideas and concepts that won’t necessarily fit together like parts of a puzzle, some of the parts are always try to pick a fight with others… The name we have was given to us by our parents, containing their expectations and hopes… A pseudonym is not a denegation of the official name, a pseudonym is the name that is chosen by ourselves to names ourselves, our hopes and expectations for us…
I fully agree. We are one and multiple at the same time. Why not picking a name for one of those masks?
What I wanted to add fits perfectly with Jim Dante’s argument.
I chose a pseudonym to liberate myself from the chains related to my real name and especially my parents. Because my real name had been chosen by them and in some way, when I speak in my real name, I speak in the name of my parents and the education they gave to me. So with a nickname, I created someone who, I guess, is the real me, bcs I don’t have to refrain myself from telling what I really think, fearing of chocking someone. It’s may be a mask but a mask which allows me to be myself.
And I completely catch up with Raya on this point: It would be impossible for me to choose one of them bcs I wouldn’t totally exist without the both of them.