nom de plume or nom de coleur or nom de rien?
some time ago, impulsive-outpourings posted a blog on the aura of anonymity in the blog world. This rather touched a raw nerve in me and especially scathed even further when a friend of mine, the same old brutus, wondered about the openness of one self on the cyberworld.
I am for one who likes to be an open book in all my affairs, and i try to strictly abide by it as far as possible, with certain acceptable exceptions। The exceptions can be deferred to some other blog for now.
let me focus on the content of this blog and that is the (in)validity of nom de plume in modern era.
wikipedia defines nom de plume as follows :-
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author for various reasons. Authors may use a pen name to replace a long, difficult, or uninteresting name or a name likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual, or to avoid overexposure.
so let us consider the 3 things mentioned above color coded for clarification. the usual writing style is to eliminate the things which contradict ur point and lead the readers towards the point the author is trying to make.
taking A style which i am resorting to now, let us consider the first point.
i am of the belief that there is only certain level of anything in a family. be it intelligence, kindness etc, there exist a well of finite quantity and more or less everyone takes a share. Generally. there, of course are exceptions, and then again it depends on how deep the well is. so in case of most geniuses , literary or otherwise, they would have been sired by a not so high in the intellect wattage parents. and more possibly be bequeathed a name not so inspiring or unique or something with some "gravitas".. so this may make an author seek a nom de plume to better define him or his views than his mundane name. of course, some may be tempted to come out with shakespearen jab that " a rose is a ...." and why does an author seek a name to define his work. for sake of this blog, let us just assume such is the case of most and very few seek or do possess a path of difficulties by trying to be an author under a name such as muthukarupaiah ramalingam.
In the cyber world, bloggers are mere humans seeking vindication in this already veiled world of easy access and yet easy annonymity of being out there with our thoughts yet not really being there. and the first step in standing outta the billions of bloggers is a name , something that stands out, something that sticks out like a beautiful girl in a tight t shirt and small mini skirt amidst her garrulous gluttonous overweight girlfriends.
[sorry i do at times do a rushdie of continuous meandering lines with no spell check in place.]
the second point to ponder is to be not confused with another writer. Unless google starts paying out to bloggers by the number of hits (or sale) each blogger gets per his blogs, i doubt this is even an issue in any case. if at all, like they say there is no such thing as a bad publicity, in the world of blogging, there is nothing more like a wrong link. in world of blogs and netlogs, there are only two types of links, either it is yours or something which leads to yours.
third point is avoiding overexposure.
I have grown up all my webdays in usa. and i do know people are kinda sketchy about putting themselves out there for fear of what people who they know, might just stumble upon what they have written and get offended or bejudge or begrudge. i can respect this point of view to a certain extent and at the same time not subscribe to it. i believe in absolute freedom of will. heck i take the costlier medical insurance so that i can goto whichever doctor i seek to (this is what is called a bounded freedom). point i am trying to make is, one writes on webpages for whatever be the reason they want to, outlet, publicity or even keeping up with the joneses, they should do it in as much freedom as they want. then again , as in all aspects of life, everything have to be tempered with balance. and if a blog is tempered with balance, then there need not be a need for fear or as a result anonymity. and furthermore, most bloggers blog about their lil thots, nothing paradigmatically shifting or revolutionarily incendiary. for the lil few who do, i agree in the olden world, that anonymity is necessary. in the modern world of ip addresses, if someone desperately wants to find out who it is, then someone can always find out who it is. so the question of anonymity in webworld is a misguided notion.
so with the above sorry excuse of a debate, nom de plume basically exist in the modern world , in my opinion only as a way to colorize your image, romanticize the notion, juxtapose a fancier identity upon one's lame one.
having said that, is it valid in the days of weblogs and vlogs and whatnots? does a person need a nom de plume? does it provide an aura of mystery? no! does it provide an appendage of identity? i believe it provides the first
take impulsive outpourings. one would assume the author behind this would want to give an image of a person, who vomits out the outpourings as and when they come out. or did the author want the readers to come to a conclusion exactly opposite to it? does it matter? what matters is what is the content being put out on the blog and not under what name it is being put (yes yes, a rose is a rose is a rose).
nom de plumes in modern days have turned out to be literally like the feathers in birds. a useless attraction device for moving to first base and hence i close this blog stating that pseudonymns or nom de plumes in this modern days of blogging seem not a thing of necessity.
was it what it was meant to be in the first case? "nom de plume " - plume is feather in french. are we missing something here?
I am for one who likes to be an open book in all my affairs, and i try to strictly abide by it as far as possible, with certain acceptable exceptions। The exceptions can be deferred to some other blog for now.
let me focus on the content of this blog and that is the (in)validity of nom de plume in modern era.
wikipedia defines nom de plume as follows :-
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author for various reasons. Authors may use a pen name to replace a long, difficult, or uninteresting name or a name likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual, or to avoid overexposure.
so let us consider the 3 things mentioned above color coded for clarification. the usual writing style is to eliminate the things which contradict ur point and lead the readers towards the point the author is trying to make.
taking A style which i am resorting to now, let us consider the first point.
i am of the belief that there is only certain level of anything in a family. be it intelligence, kindness etc, there exist a well of finite quantity and more or less everyone takes a share. Generally. there, of course are exceptions, and then again it depends on how deep the well is. so in case of most geniuses , literary or otherwise, they would have been sired by a not so high in the intellect wattage parents. and more possibly be bequeathed a name not so inspiring or unique or something with some "gravitas".. so this may make an author seek a nom de plume to better define him or his views than his mundane name. of course, some may be tempted to come out with shakespearen jab that " a rose is a ...." and why does an author seek a name to define his work. for sake of this blog, let us just assume such is the case of most and very few seek or do possess a path of difficulties by trying to be an author under a name such as muthukarupaiah ramalingam.
In the cyber world, bloggers are mere humans seeking vindication in this already veiled world of easy access and yet easy annonymity of being out there with our thoughts yet not really being there. and the first step in standing outta the billions of bloggers is a name , something that stands out, something that sticks out like a beautiful girl in a tight t shirt and small mini skirt amidst her garrulous gluttonous overweight girlfriends.
[sorry i do at times do a rushdie of continuous meandering lines with no spell check in place.]
the second point to ponder is to be not confused with another writer. Unless google starts paying out to bloggers by the number of hits (or sale) each blogger gets per his blogs, i doubt this is even an issue in any case. if at all, like they say there is no such thing as a bad publicity, in the world of blogging, there is nothing more like a wrong link. in world of blogs and netlogs, there are only two types of links, either it is yours or something which leads to yours.
third point is avoiding overexposure.
I have grown up all my webdays in usa. and i do know people are kinda sketchy about putting themselves out there for fear of what people who they know, might just stumble upon what they have written and get offended or bejudge or begrudge. i can respect this point of view to a certain extent and at the same time not subscribe to it. i believe in absolute freedom of will. heck i take the costlier medical insurance so that i can goto whichever doctor i seek to (this is what is called a bounded freedom). point i am trying to make is, one writes on webpages for whatever be the reason they want to, outlet, publicity or even keeping up with the joneses, they should do it in as much freedom as they want. then again , as in all aspects of life, everything have to be tempered with balance. and if a blog is tempered with balance, then there need not be a need for fear or as a result anonymity. and furthermore, most bloggers blog about their lil thots, nothing paradigmatically shifting or revolutionarily incendiary. for the lil few who do, i agree in the olden world, that anonymity is necessary. in the modern world of ip addresses, if someone desperately wants to find out who it is, then someone can always find out who it is. so the question of anonymity in webworld is a misguided notion.
so with the above sorry excuse of a debate, nom de plume basically exist in the modern world , in my opinion only as a way to colorize your image, romanticize the notion, juxtapose a fancier identity upon one's lame one.
having said that, is it valid in the days of weblogs and vlogs and whatnots? does a person need a nom de plume? does it provide an aura of mystery? no! does it provide an appendage of identity? i believe it provides the first
take impulsive outpourings. one would assume the author behind this would want to give an image of a person, who vomits out the outpourings as and when they come out. or did the author want the readers to come to a conclusion exactly opposite to it? does it matter? what matters is what is the content being put out on the blog and not under what name it is being put (yes yes, a rose is a rose is a rose).
nom de plumes in modern days have turned out to be literally like the feathers in birds. a useless attraction device for moving to first base and hence i close this blog stating that pseudonymns or nom de plumes in this modern days of blogging seem not a thing of necessity.
was it what it was meant to be in the first case? "nom de plume " - plume is feather in french. are we missing something here?
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