I know a person who uses a self-taken name in real life. (Her given name is Anastasia, but she goes by Alice.) It doesn’t have the advantages of online pseudos hiding someone’s trail from unfavorable scrutiny, but it’s important enough for her that she used to sign official papers with it and now has changed her documents accordingly. In her case, it’s a matter of being her own self-invented person… and back when I used pseudo names online, it used to have the same aftertaste.
I know a person who uses a self-taken name in real life. (Her given name is Anastasia, but she goes by Alice.) It doesn’t have the advantages of online pseudos hiding someone’s trail from unfavorable scrutiny, but it’s important enough for her that she used to sign official papers with it and now has changed her documents accordingly. In her case, it’s a matter of being her own self-invented person… and back when I used pseudo names online, it used to have the same aftertaste.