Blog Awards Challenge

Blog Awards Challenge 2nd runner-up (Achievement): exsanguinatrix

Winning Entry Title: United as one, divided by zero [original link]

Winning entry is reprinted below.
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Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant and vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

-- V from V for Vendetta

I am thinking of a word that indicates the state of being anonymous. Anonymity. But I am thinking of 'anonymosity,' which is not a real word, but is more apt. Bloggers, or the denizens of the internet (or intarwebz to be precise), all revel in their/ our anonymosity in varying levels.

There is a trick here. The notion that being anonymous denotes dishonesty, that to hide one's identity is to be untruthful. The trick here is in thinking that a person's real nature is the person we can see, the person IRL. How completely asinine.

A wealthy businessman is popular with his friends and colleagues, respected even by his rivals, gives to charity, is a doting father and husband to his wife and children. He should be sainted. He then goes online where he is completely unknown and puts this on Craigslist. Is the real person the one the public can see, or the one kept in secret?

No. To be anonymous is to be real. The internet has afforded everyone (with a computer and internet connection) freedom from the codes of conduct that govern society. We do not belch or pass gas in public because we fear judgment. On the internet, there are forums entirely dedicated to animated porn of dickgirls with shitting nipples. Do not for one second think that the users who visit this board are not real people. They are. They are simply Anonymous.

Anonymous here is a state of being. And being anonymous is to be part of a being. It is bigger than you, bigger than me. I am anonymous on the internet. You are. The troll who likes to flame your blog, the narutards who argue endlessly, the gammar nazis, the lurkers, the n00bs, the 14 year old kid on myspace dat typs lyk dis. They are Anonymous.

One cannot be anonymous alone. As the saying goes, we are legion. That perhaps is why we blog, why we lurk, why we hide behind fake names. We are cowards by the number and that is our strength. We can rant on our blogs, blaspheme, commit high treason, be racist homophobes and get away with it. And because none of us are as cruel as all of us, there is sure to be someone else out there-- some other Anonymous-- who will push the envelope too far, and then farther still. To quote Fight Club again, this is humanity when the gloves come off.

So we are real when we blog anonymously. Our snark, our rapier wits used to hack away at people/ ideas/ institutions that we feel are beneath us fill our blogs. This is how we present ourselves to the world wide web, how we define ourselves. Our real selves, the things we think and feel that we can not easily show in public.

There's no use worrying about who might discover and read our blog. Hit that preview button before publishing the entry. The time it takes for the page to load is roughly the time it should take for you to realize that you are not your job, you are not how much money you have in the bank, you are not the car you drive, you are not the contents of your wallet. You are who you are when no one can recognize you. You are the twisted little imp who downloads dwarf porn and intellectualizes shit on your blog while you sit in front of your computer in your underwear. Worry about that person. Be terrified of that one.

Aha! To be astounded. An army of assholes, an association armed with an arsenal of asinine ambiguously adult anonymii. This antiquated armada no mere attack force, is an astounding assembly of articulate aristocrats. Assuming the collective affliction has not abruptly atrophied, another day of ardent internet arguments arises. Under the ambiguous aegis of internet anonymity, all annoying assertions may be announced with reckless abandon. Apology? Do not forgive. Alas, I am all aflutter. After the anticipation.... You may call me Anonymous.

--Anonymous

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