Alter Egos

An interesting side effect of the internet is superficial anonymity. Note I said superficial; true anonymity has a long way to go, and if someone with the means wants to track you, they will. (I suggest you do something about it now, before things get ugly.) That ominous bit of news aside, it's interesting how the casual facelessness of the internet allows people to assume mannerisms far different than the ones they show in meatspace the real world. We build our own alter egos—sometimes, entire groups of them. One well known consequence of this is trolling. It's obnoxious, but from a thousand foot distance, it's the ultimate expression of free speech. Come on down and say anything you want, no matter how horrible, without any repercussions! The internet truly is the world's collective id. Or toilet. Whichever.

As a writer, the rise of the online alter ego is fascinating to me. I hate to ruin the illusion, but my name's not really H.C. Cavall, nor am I a handsome, asexual winged man with a vague resemblance to Neil Gaiman. (Believe me, no one's more disappointed than I am.) Alter egos have been a thing in the writing world for centuries. Want to put distance between you and a controversial work? Publish it under a pen name. Want to try a new genre without confusing your existing fans? Pen name! Ready to drop some new, kinky erotica? Pick out a pen name, and let your freak flag fly! I know for a fact there's a lot more author names than authors themselves. I'm fairly certain 75% of the noms de plume in the world are actually just 25 unique people. I can vouch for myself, a casual friend, and three people I follow on Twitter. Who are the other 20? The world may never now.

Anyway, the internet tosses another layer of personal detachment on top of this, which allows you to actively play with your self-image. Now, you can not only publish but meet people as your pen name. You can filter yourself through that lens, magnifying or minimizing your personality traits—both surface and hidden. I'm not advocating being a fake, mind you... although I'm not really sure that's even possible. All that pomp and theater has to come from somewhere, and what you think is a façade may, in fact, express some hidden truths about yourself that you might not like. It can also be a controlled space to let out a side of yourself that would otherwise stay locked up in your brain for good. For better or worse, the alter ego is a recurring and even necessary part of literature, and this online phenomenon of "pretending to be someone else" is a natural evolution of what was already there.

To be yourself, sometimes you have to be someone else. I'm almost certain I stole that from a song or TV show, but it's nevertheless true.



Featured Music
Art Angels
(Grimes)
This album is terrifyingly good. Grimes—the alter ego (see what I did there?) of Canadian musician/producer/director/everything Claire Boucher—jumps all over the map with her influences and layers sounds in ways I can't even begin to put into words. (And that's coming from someone whose job is, y'know, to put things into words.) Grimes' vocal range jumps all over the place, too, going from Betty Boop to Bikini Kill in the span of a few seconds on "Kill v. Maim." If you're going down this trail—and you absolutely should—the videos that go along with it are mandatory viewing. You can find them here. They're populated with oddball recurring characters like Skreechy Bat, Roccoco Basilisk, and Kill v. Maim, and I'm not even going to pretend to interpret them, so here's the woman herself on the subject. If you do nothing else, though, check out the video for Kill v. Maim. It's a perfect fit to the music and a good a place as any to jump into the Grimesverse.

Also, Skreechy Bat is just dreamy. Dem feathers.

Get it on her site or on Spotify. Seriously, Boucher is not only a great musician but also a very good producer, and there's so much going on on this album that whenever I try to describe how incredible it is my brain goes for twelve different adjectives at once and my brain shuts down and I have to go take a nap. Get it and listen to it yourself, every single track is amazing. In fact, I'd say they'rzzzzzzzz