this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 16 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

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 🫠

[–] VivianRixia@piefed.social 2 points 2 hours ago

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.

I'm good. Me online and irl is pretty much the same.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

Not much. I've made it a rule not to say anything on the internet that I'd be ashamed to say IRL. Other posters have recognised me from real life a couple of times and it's been no big deal.

I was once part of a community for making very crass jokes about sensitive topics, but given that the entrance is plastered with warnings about what you're going to find inside, I hope people would take it in its proper context.

[–] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 8 points 10 hours ago

Not very :3

Meh, I don't say anything online I wouldn't say to your face, so the folks that know me would just be "Ya, that tracks."

Might wind up on a few more government lists though.

Oh well. Winter is coming.

[–] ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Not even the tiniest bit, lol. I stand by everything I said here (and wouldn't mind being corrected, ofc) and my friends and family know me well enough to see I'm actually trying to be cordial to y'all! Oh, and my wife 'stalks' me on Lemmy already. πŸ˜…

[–] sunbrrnslapper@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago

Not. I'm pretty much the same irl and online. Anyone who knows me could probably figure out who I am based on my posts (no need to wait for a doxing!). 🀷

[–] zeropointone@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

I've already been completely screwed before Lemmy. At this point, all that could happen is me getting unscrewed.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I'm in the US right now, wouldn't be fun to get deanonymized.

Edit: Note to Mods: this is about legal issues and civil rights infringement, so its not really "political", but I've hidden it in a spoiler tag so people don't have to read it if they don't want to.

Wall of TextI'm a non-US-born American, and probably wouldn't be dissenting online if I were a non-citizen. And even so, I'm using Tor right now.

I already accounted for like the 50% chance that NSA has deanonymized me so I make sure to not make any actual threats. So yea even tho I'm dissenting, I have waterered-down what I really mesnt to say so my words are still supposedly legal (mostly do this so that I win the "court of public opinion" if I do get arrested). Like if I get arrested for a "trump loves to suck dick" comment, I'll be famous on the news especially considering Mahmoud Khakil is a Muslim Greencard holder that got so much good press and its only because they managed to villianize Palestine, while I'm a Citizen and I fit into the "model minority" stereotype so its much harder to paint a negative picture about me.

Like the headline looks like: "Anti-CCP ethnic Chinese, American Citizen, whom the CCP tried to prevent the birth of under the One Child Policy, arrested for criticizing dictatorships and excersicing freedom of speech". Yea legally I can get very fucked, but I'll make a great news article. I'm okay with dying if it mean I got a wikipedia page for it lol.

I guess I could get very fucked if they actually start to prosecute online comments, but then again there's like millions of anti-trump comments they have no room to fit everyone in concentrstion camps, unless they pull off a "Tiananmen".

If Americans really let this trump version of Tiananmen happen, then I probably wouldn't have enjoyed what comes afterwards anyways so I might be better off just dying.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

Meh. I like the privacy but it wouldn't be that bad. I try not to be an asshole, and NSFW stuff, I figure it's private more because nobody wants to see that, than to protect me personally, I am not embarrassed to be human.

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

I've been using this handle longer than I've been using my real name. If you really want me you can find me.

[–] moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 hours ago

honestly I act the same in real life so not much

[–] Oka@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 hours ago

OP, is there something you're hiding?

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 9 hours ago
[–] scottmeme@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Worst is that everyone knows I say fuck a lot.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Swear words are actually handled by a separate ancillary language center in the brain...

You're not being crude, you're just using your whole fucking brain

[–] scottmeme@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Giga brain and giga body...

Engaging that part of your brain increases pain tolerance and strength.

All anyone needs to be a fucking hulk is to lose their fucking filter.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7204505/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11586181/

Now, what's crazy is your brain doesn't know what a swear word is innately, so saying "fricking" with the same meaning and being used habitually as a standin gives the same effects. Any word/phrase with enough emotional effect gets filtered there, could be anything

Tldr:

You can train a child to yell "That's my purse" and get stronger and tougher like Bobby Hill

[–] tpyoman@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Everyone knows my nickname. It would be trivial to find my shit online.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

A few of my coworkers might be judgy of my hobbies, but other than that, I don't do anything here on Lemmy that people I know would care about.

[–] 001Guy001@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 hours ago

With my family/peers - not at all.

With psychopaths in power and their supporters/goons - mildly to very.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

It would be annoying and some relationships that have withered might finally be snapped off and thrown away, but honestly while I appreciate the opportunity to say stuff online that I generally wouldn't want to be public knowledge, I say nothing that I couldn't handle being public knowledge. Probably a good rule of thumb, TBH.

[–] Kennystillalive@feddit.org 3 points 10 hours ago

Not at all.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 8 hours ago

Eh, I'm out with the important people, and I'm not one of the guys with a dick pic as my profile picture.

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 3 points 7 hours ago

None of my nudes include face and I stand behind everything I’ve said, and I’m not that worried about it. I basically expect that one day some supercomputer will stitch it all together and create profiles for everyone based on our entire internet histories. And honestly, I don’t think it’s the quirky people with weird fetishes who’ll be screwed - it’s the mean, lying hypocrites who’ll have to stand behind the mountain of crap they’ve been spewing for decades.

[–] megane_kun@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Which one? If all of them, I'm very screwed.

If it's only one of them, I might still be fine. I often have more than one account in each "domain" to maintain some semblance of compartmentalism. If I can't do that, I usually don't post much, if at all.

[–] missingno@fedia.io 2 points 9 hours ago

While I've had to deal with a few recurring bullies who really don't like me, I doubt any of them would take it far enough to go after me IRL.

I hope.

No one cares. Not a single person has attempted to look me up; at least no one who has admitted it.

Cant imagine anyone who knows me bothering to look through much. I have had accounts where it certainly would be a problem if they were just widely known to belong to me, but even then there's a couple irl people who know of them and haven't bothered trying to look through it.

if we were just talking about this account being widely known to belong to me, the biggest change would be getting outed as trans at work. Not exactly sure how well that would go.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 hours ago
[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

The people who stalk me online and fantasize about killing me are the bigger issue than my family etc finding out (who already know about my lifestyle). However, it would be extremely hard for them to physically locate me regardless and even harder for them to actually harm me so whatever, I'm not cool with it but it probably wouldn't impact me

I don't think anyone would really care but me and mainly because I'm kinda shy.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

I would be chased off Lemmy.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Not as much as you think. It is already pretty closely tied toy name.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 hours ago

Honestly, not that hard to figure out who I am. I know I put out enough info.

Not a problem.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 9 hours ago

I've used the same IP with an Android phone (even though it's largely neutered). I just assume that means Google knows, that My ISP knows. So the government knows. Palantir knows. Meta knows.

Zero percent screwed because I watch my mouth on my doxable account I'll delete in 6 months ;)

[–] FRYD@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Actually more people in my life know about my β€œintimate preferences” than they know my opinions on what I post online. Everyone wants to know my kinks, but nobody wants to listen to me whine about the government and corpos. smh my head

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Very. Google is now summarizing everything it knows about you.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 30 minutes ago

I couldn't get a summary. I may suck at gemini-fu. Or I'm a nobody; and that's fine too.

[–] baduhai@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 hours ago

Eh, not very. If you look hard enough you can already find out my real name from my Lemmy account.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 3 hours ago

Although I like anonymity Im one of those people that really does not have the energy for multiple faces. I don't think many people would be surprised who is behind Hue Manne.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 31 minutes ago

Two things are true:

  • anything I write in here, I'll have a shouting match about on the B train at 1 in the morning on a Tuesday with a good friend who's smart and funny and, sadly, very wrong about the proper way to test a peacock for colour-blindness. IT'S COLOURED BUGS, CARL! COLOURED! BUGS! !GHAWD!!

  • randos who hear it will form negative opinions about me. And that's okay until - with my luck - they're my interviewer the next day.

I'm okay with those two things being true. One of my worst interviewers became my boss and a very excellent friend, so there's that.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 1 hour ago

The most damaging thing would be admitting how much time I spend here