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My username is most of my real name already. All of my friends and family know this. I even make comments all the time about stuff I found on Reddit/Lemmy/Discord/etc. No one cares. Not a single person has attempted to look me up; at least no one who has admitted it.
I try to be true to myself online. It's easy to hide behind a username, and eventually you start thinking you're invincible; that no one will figure out who you are. And you start saying things that might hurt you or ones you love if it ever got out.
I choose to avoid that altogether and just be myself online. Keeping a username that can be tied back to myself keeps me in check and ensures I only say or do things online that people who know me in real life would respect. It helps me to be a better person, even with the anonymity that the Internet may bring.
I used to believe in this (and to a degree still do), but the idea of increasing the attack surface of unreasonable people (who seem to have become increasingly common in the last 10 years) who will do insane things like SWAT you, or doxx your personal details (like home address), or even just follow you around online to harass you has made me have second thoughts about the tradeoffs involved in this approach ๐ซ
Plus, you gotta be white, male, straight and cis to avoid harassment just for being who you are online. I am none of those things, so no thank you to using a traceable identity online.
This is the way. And same here. I don't use the mask of pseudo-anonymity to be a jackass. Anyone I know who discovers my online accounts will find I interact online and IRL exactly the same way.