This is the second post of this series.
People ask why I use the name Stegzy Gnomepants. I usually say "Mind your own business". Sometimes, however, I'm not so rude about it; the reason I use the name Stegzy Gnomepants is because people know me by that name.
I started using the internet in 1986, but back then the internet was bobbins and was more like Ceefax than the internet we know and love today. Back then I used the handle Stegzy and remained using that name until about a month later when my parents got their telephone bill and the internet was taken away from me.Tardis yourself forward in time to 1998 when I bought my first PC. It was a Pentium 266. It cost me £1000 or there abouts. Top of the range. Fast modem (56kpbs). A whopping lump of RAM (something like 16Mb). A cavernous hard drive (approx 512Mb). I connected to the internet and restarted my online life as Stegzy.
Internet fashions came and went. AOL IM, CompuServe, that weird virtual world that Demon Internet had for a few years, Usenet newsgroups - all using the name stegzy. The Gnomepants bit came shortly after, when, as more and more people began using the internet, names were getting quickly claimed by other users. Yes, another Stegzy started to appear. I had to distinguish. Someone I knew then affectionately used to call me Gnomepants, I adopted that name as my online personalities surname.
This was the early 2000s. Then came Freeserve chat. I used the name stegzy there as well as evilgnome. Sometimes, for anonymity, I would use the name gnomepants. It helped separate my real life from my online life. It kept people from my work, past and those I didn't want to communicate with, out of my online adventures where, if they found out about my activities, they would have ruined it. Ripping me away from my special place. My escape. My hide away. Where I was safe from those that would interfere. A place I could be myself without fear of judgement or prejudice.
Next came Livejournal. You can find me there using the name Stegzy too and all entries from there have been preserved here on Wordpress too. That is when the real Stegzy Gnomepants blossomed. 2004 came and went. Sometime during this period a bloke called Zuckerberg created a service called Facebook...you might have heard of it.So lets look at this again....1986 I begin using the name Stegzy. Stegzy Gnomepants circa 1998. People I meet on line know me as Stegzy Gnomepants. I spend the majority of the period 1998-2004 online as....Stegzy Gnomepants. Then some bloke comes along and creates a website called Facebook which nobody had heard of.
Ok, let's carry on...Myspace - Stegzy Gnomepants. Hotmail - stegzy gnomepants. Google! What name shall I use? Oh I know, I'll use my real name...Nobody knows me...ok I'll use my assumed name....Everyone knows me! Stegzy Gnomepants.2006ish. Good online friend Dan4th (Hi Dan if you still read!) tells me about some website where American kids hang out. Fascist books or Fuctbook or something. Oh yes...Facebook...I'll sign up. Stegzy Gnomepants.
Blogspot arose - Stegzy Gnomepants; Wordpress - Stegzy Gnomepants; Hell, I'm Stegzy Gnomepants on the BBC, Ebay, everywhere. Search google. You'll see me using that everywhere and I have been for a very very long time.
Once more lets step back and look -
Me - Known online as Stegzy Gnomepants since 1998
Zuckerberg - Known online as Facebook since 2004.Think that makes me win.
2014. Facebook decide that I must use my real name. A name nobody on the internet knows me by.I teach Social Media for Business during the day. In my lessons I advise that to be successful online you need to remain consistent across all platforms. Use the same username where possible. The same avatar. The same contact details. Thats how people know who you are.
Mr Zuckerberg, if I'm to change my name just for your silly little empire, then my influence will have no weight. Businesses will not use me as an influencer. I cannot be a potential brand ambassador for your clients. I am the celebrity. I am the authority. I am the connector, the expert, the agitator. I am the journalist and the activist. I am the personal brand personified. That means my real identity is nothing to you or your customers, the people you sell our details to.
Yes I know you say I can create a PAGE but with a page I cannot interact with people as a person. Like things as a person. Interact, engage and amplify as a person online. Especially with products, services or similar which anyone can see me liking, make a judgement on my character. My beliefs. My choices. People that judge. People who I have no wish to share my identity with.
Someone said about my last post on this matter "If you don't want to adhere to the Facebook's terms and conditions don't use it". Something I am considering. Very hard. Perhaps over to Google+, who realised a very long time ago, forcing your "product" to use something in a way they don't want to leads to failure. Isn't that right Google Wave?
So when the call comes I will depart from Facebook. I will leave it never to return. You can continue to read my exploits here on Livejournal (though I'd prefer if you did it on Wordpress) or follow me on Twitter (@stegzy). Facebook postings will decline. I'm sorry if you, like Zuckerberg, no longer want, care or give a stuff about what I say, like or want to share with you. I'm sorry if you no longer want to fuel our social media narcissism together. But if that's the way you want to play, I'll let you take your ball home by yourself. Just mind you don't trip over those toys you claim I threw out of my pram.
