I’m a semi-private individual. In that, I will speak of things I am comfortable talking about by my own filtering. Once I let it out and speak of it, it could very well mean that I was comfortable posting that and almost nothing can make me feel guilt or embarrassment of saying it.
One thing I have observed people slipping on is that, people tend to have no filter. So they go on and on and on about themselves, not having a sense of the mind to think that someone out there, anywhere, could be documenting them. Sadly, there are those people that are out there.
On one hand, someone just wants to communicate, project themselves, let others know who they are. On another hand, they won’t know whether or not they’re being documented so that in turn, are re-broadcast to another community or someone else who is gonna just have a field day with some aspects of what you spoke about that could later crop up when you least expect it.
Often times you’ll hear people say that they don’t care what others think. It’s funny how most of the time that is uttered and it is challenged, people end up folding pretty fast at times. It implies that yes, you do to a degree, care about what people think of what you’ve said.
So this is why I’m semi-private. If I have the thought of ‘I don’t think I’m that comfortable talking about this’ then it is simply not spoken of. I think some people need to occasionally think that way.
There is some truth to the unwritten rule of the internet where, you shouldn’t gush too much about all aspects of your life. Reserve that for online journals or blogs.
I had a BSN program where an ongoing assignment was blog posts although it was an option to set the privacy to your instructor / fellow students only. I think it was good practice in maintaining patient privacy while still expressing your lived experience for the purposes of self-care venting AND advocating for societal reform. Like yeah I’m not going to tell you enough details to personally identify the patients who have done some sketchy shit to us or had sketchy shit done to them, but I do think it’s important that the rest of you understand how things actually work / happen. Some things are entirely unavoidable, but there’s also a lot of things that should be unavoidable but currently aren’t due to some social ill.
I’ll share what I need to when it’s appropriate, but I’m still cautious about it. Still wanna remain anonymous while also leaving interesting/relevant comments to prompt interesting convo
I try to keep personal details offline but I love oversharing so it can be difficult sometimes. Occasionally I will realize I said too much and delete a comment.
Very open IRL and online. I don’t understand the concept of shame around basic boring facts of my humanity.
It upsets a lot of people. Often people who are very concerned about their image and seeking validation from other people who are very closed off and present themselves in a very selective way. These people often accuse me of being pretentious and judgemental… which is precisely what they are doing, and often are deeply ashamed of themselves.
I just don’t really understand what the big deal is personally. But I grew up in a household where everything i did was constantly shamed, so I just kind of became indifferent to it because most of my family are really stupid people who get upset about every inconsequential thing. Over the holiday my brother asked me what dish I wanted for from Chinese take out, and I asked what kind of chinese and he called me a stupid asshole for asking that. Where I live there are different styles of Chinese food, where he lives there is only shitty Americanized Chinese food. In his mind I an asshole for even asking the question. Where I live they don’t have every dish at every place and I don’t ever really get the americanized dishes.
I also went to a famous college and people’s reactions to that fact about me… alarming. I don’t really regard my attendance of this place as significant, but my biggest regret about going is the way people treat me because of it. If someone doesn’t care about it, I’m genuinely impressed, because most people care about it and attack me for it because it makes them feel inadequate or something. It’s been an issue in so many relationships/friendships and I just don’t understand why it is relevant at all, but to other people this fact is extremely important.
I am fairly open, for a couple of reasons. I’m older now, and I have a lot of lived experience and education. Secondly, I learned a long time ago that silence can enable. I have nothing to lose by sharing my story in particular. So in certain communities I am open about difficult topics.
I think it’s a myth that your online accounts can’t be connected to you. Even if you’re exclusively using burner phones connected through a VPN, people could trace you if they really wanted to. I’m honest online and in person, and I’ll accept the consequence of anything I post.
wouldn’t you question the sanity of someone who did that to you? like went to such extreme ends… to what? find some random comment they dislike and generalized you based on that?
my experience with such people is they are mentally unwell and have boundary issues. I’ve been cyber stalked a few times, thankfully it never escalated beyond light harassment.
My fediverse accounts are anonymous and may not be tracable to me or my family based on the information I post. I do post political views and stuff about my hobbys. I leave my loved ones out of my posts, so no sharing of pictures or other personal information.
I do have a dormant LinkedIn account and a semi-active Strava account though, so if you can trace my fediverse accounts to either, you can potentially find out some more personal stuff.
like what, that you only run 5K in 40m? and what would someone do with that, make fun of you for being slow or something?
My producer and I are open on general things, but realistically speaking, we tend to keep our most private information concealed, as we advocate for controlling what information we leak.
Nice try, FBI. 😂
Nah, I’m pretty open as well. I get the idea that the conduct is similar to talking to strangers IRL, and I wear my heart on my sleeve and open myself up completely. Old habit from trying to accept things by telling others about it, and just kept going.
I won’t tell someone where I work and live or anything else personally identifying, but ideas and values? Totally open on that.
As for not caring what people think. You might be getting hung up on the definition of “care.” I think we all care, to a greater or lesser extent, about things we profess to not care about. Speaking specifically for myself, I might seem to care to some extent, but I don’t let what others say or do affect who I am. That’s an important line to draw, and to recognise when it’s being approached and to disengage when it gets pushed, but learning to do so comes with age and experience.
Semi-private as well. I try to have completely separate identities on different websites that aren’t easily linked to each other, and each different identity has different “boundaries” on what I will share about myself. e.g. on some websites I share what country I live in, some I don’t. On some websites I specify my gender, on some I don’t. Tbh I don’t think I specify my age anywhere because I started using the internet as a kid and got used to never stating my age—still feels wrong today as an adult.
That all being said, I do still have varying things I’m open about in different contexts to enable me to have conversations about topics I want to have conversations about. I don’t state anything my government doesn’t know though (unless it’s completely irrelevant/useless for them to know).
I’ve had a personal blog since the previous millennium. My primary subs on reddit were “Ask” communities, two of which I was so active in I went on to mod them. I post under my real name. I am not shy.
I don’t put anything online I wouldn’t say out loud in real life, though. That’s my limit.
Before having US citizenship, I probably would not mention any political things and like be vague about my location.
But now I have US Citizenship, and yes I know it’s not a magic shield, but it’s much better than non-citizens, so now I feel a bit more confident in just saying:
FUCK DONALD TRUMP, TREASONOUS PIECE OF SHIT
I have a lot of anecdotes and I really wanna share and that’ll inevitibly make it easier to track me down… but whatever… I have no one irl that would wanna listen, so I’m gonna tell my story on the internet, leave a permanent mark in history. Hi future historians 👋
I already disclosed my ethnicity and city… I don’t care anymore.
I feel safe sharingthe general area of where I previously lived.
But current location, yes I’d just be vague and the city is the most precise I’m comfortable sharing.
I mean some twitch streamers shate their face, name, and city and their address is still private, I should be fine since I’m a nobody and no names or face is shared.
But I’m still gonna guard my family secrets, well not the abusive things, that I need to vent about, but I’m not gonna tell you where my parents set up shop for example… don’t want any shitheads doing vandalism.
Not gonna tell my name, not gonna show my face.
I mean, I doubt any normie is actually gonna be able to find me from a few anecdotes, you need a lot of government databases to find who I am.
The NSA, tho, I have no doubt that they can find me if targeted this account, but I’m not that scared, there are like a million anti-trump comments online, what are the odds that I get persecuted? (I’m gonna jinks it aren’t I)
Hey if my address get leaked, I have an excuse to move xD, I’m getting tired of this place… but yea I’d try to not intentionally leak it.
I end up being quite open, if I’m being honest. There are many things that I don’t expose about myself online, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone could make an accurate, partial profile of what kind of person I am based only on my lemmy posts, plus a close approximation of where I live.
Depends where on the internet I’m in.
On here and when I was on reddit, I’m a bit more guarded and speak in broader terms in regards to family/friends/experiences so as not to pin too many identifiable specifics on me.
In another long forgotten corner of the internet that like at most 30 people congregate in, I’m a bit more open but not overly so.
