Are you a Hashtag … or a Person?

While it’s topical, a quick post on Gamergate.  I don’t care to delve in-depth into this issue, largely because it has become convoluted to the point where it is nearly impossible to talk about it intelligently if you haven’t been following it closely.  I certainly recognize the incredibly violent backlash from the straight-white-male-dominant-group as a familiar one though.  As this fabulous Guardian article states, the world increasingly does not revolve around this once-all-powerful group, and some of these guys don’t know how to deal.  They are becoming increasingly vociferous as their power slips away—and that is dangerous.

The line in the article that really grabbed me though was this:

“The promise of the early internet was that it would liberate us from our bodies, and all the oppressions associated with prejudice. We’d communicate soul-to-soul, and get to know each other as people, rather than judging each other based on gender or race.” – Alice Marwick

Considering how much the Gamergate case has involved online harassment of people outside the straight-white-male group, the quote is highly relevant.

It’s funny though that I’d see this quote today, because I was just thinking this morning that the internet did seem to promise that liberation in the beginning.  And for me, at least for a little while, it actually delivered.  It was only a few years … but I do remember a time before those white-straight-male assumptions fell into place.  I suppose it was back in those early-adopter days before the bulk of humanity swarmed the online ethers. That was before the rise of Facebook and Twitter and a thousand other services demanding that you post your “real” name and identity online.  Back when people cared about their privacy.  Back when we had, you know, screen-names.   

Of course, all of this raises the question of what a real identity is, and that's kind of my point here.

My own blog is pseudonymous out of fear of reprisals should my own identity as a kinky pansexual transgender person surface in my online workplace.  Homophobia is rampant there, and if you are so much as suspected of being gay, you will face a fast falling-out.  It’s actually a rare community where anonymity still is prized, and if you think about it, this is ironic—but it echoes the point of the Guardian article.  Even in an identity-free land, people are still assumed to be white, straight males.  If they are not, they are not necessarily welcome.  Exceptions are occasionally made.  I'm accepted there as a woman, despite the misogyny that prevails in that community.  But my reputation would not necessarily survive any further disclosures about my orientation or gender identity.

Despite these major shortcomings, I love working online.  Why?  Because I am not immediately judged on sight by my age, sex, race, and so on.  I am judged for my skill at what I do.  It is in a sense all an illusion, because as mentioned above, you are judged the moment your anonymity fractures.  But the internet has in a very real sense liberated me to be respected as a professional within that envelope of anonymity.  I'd much rather be respected as professional without having to conceal details of my life, but this is a good middle ground for now.  The reality is, my identity goes way beyond my age and sex and race.  Isn't the quality of my work more integral to who I really am?  In that sense, anonymity, at least on that level, is quite valid.

In my particular case, I consider my orientation equally integral though, which is why this situation is not completely satisfactory.  I am not my age, sex or race.  Those are coincidences, and deserve no notice.  My orientation on the other hand at least is half-choice--and I would like to be respected for that.  That is valid.  That is part of my real identity.

The early days of the internet were incidentally when I was growing up.  I was right at a formative age where a lot was going to be decided about my future.  During that time, a lot of people kept their real-life “identities” to themselves online, and did liberate themselves from their bodies and from prejudice.  I actually did get a chance to communicate soul-to-soul.  I came to love people not based on their age, sex, gender, orientation, or nationality, but for their interests, passions, values, personalities, and choices.  I even knew one person who was so obsessed with enforcing this policy with his relationships that I didn’t know the first thing about his age, sex, race, etc. until years had gone by.  I loved him without caring if he was a man or a woman, whether he was 15 or 95, whether he was black or white.  And that’s how I try to love everyone.  Because that is what real life is--not a collection of labels and coincidences of birth.  Real life is our choices.

In hindsight, I think that time online in those bygone days was what solidified my pansexual and panromantic identity.  I had, for all too brief a time, the wonderful experience of meeting people with their skin peeled away, and contacting their souls first.  This still happens now and again, but so seldom.  This experience stripped me of any remaining programming I might have retained from a strict and prejudicial upbringing.  I realized how unimportant labels were.  Loving someone—that’s all that matters.  And that is why I differentiate my orientation from many of the other labels affixed to me.  I do choose how I relate to others, how I love others.

Then came Facebook and all the rest, and so much for the age of self-discovery and identity exploration online.  Now those days are gone, and the internet is a stark reminder of the truth.  Now, with everyone encouraged to share their offline "identities" online, it is easier than ever to target and harass others.  People say it's about safety, and maybe to a small extent it is, but it’s mostly about control.  Most people don’t want liberation.  And so our offline identities—along with our online identities—are constrained. We're not really sharing our real identities online at all.  We're sharing a list of labels which were slapped on us at birth or later in our lifetimes.

And so we forget.  We aren’t a batch of labels and hashtags.  Our souls get buried in the morass of data.  

And we don’t meet people—we collate them.  And that has been going on since the dawn of time.  Technology could have helped us end that cycle, and it still could.  But it is up to us to rise to the occasion.