Artist Names

The best way to create is via an artist name.

How do you create on the internet for bold, new ideas? My answer is pseudonyms. 

Our family had just moved. I was pretty awkward as a kid. So I turned inside and forged a new identity. Looking back, I grew up on the internet instead. I could finally talk to people who shared my interests. Slowly, I started to gain a reputation inside these communities. 

But I was not myself. I was not 9. Online, I was 18 – the age of a real adult. I was not from a boring suburb. Online, I was from the city. Online, I spoke confidently. 

Is this inauthentic? By definition maybe, but I’ve discovered that this is how powerful ideas are created and distributed.

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This form of culture is awesome and simply because the internet connects you with strangers and your username was almost certainly already taken. Invent your own name

To shed your identity from your work:

- Joanne Rowling of Harry Potter used her pen name (J. K. Rowling) to mask being a woman to her audience of young boys. She has no middle name.

- EDM Calvin Harris is actually Adam Richard Wiles. And he chose his name because he wanted to be more “racially ambiguous” while he was making soul music.

As a test of your raw ability

- J.K. Rowling then used another pen name Robert Galbraith to prove to herself that her new series would do well without the Harry Potter reputation.

To be more pronounceable

- DJs Anton Zaslavski (Zedd), Martijn Gerard Garritsen (Martin Garrix), and more — all anglicized their european name to be easier to read and remember.

To play into your brand

- EDM duo Daft Punk, Marshmallo, etc.

Protect yourself from your work

- Lenin and Stalin of the USSR were actually Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili. They wrote their political docs in scrutiny.

- Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin whitepaper and is still unknown to this day. We will likely never know who this person is, even if they try to prove it themselves, we won’t believe them.

- Banksy is untraceable for his graffiti art.

Protect your family and friends from your work:

- George Orwell is actually Eric Arthur Blair. He did not want his family name to be connected with being a “tramp” 

Separate the multiplicity of our lives

- Childish Gambino is really just the rapper stage name for Donald Glover, separating his music from his acting/directing career.

- Ingahild Grathmer illustrated the Lord of the Rings books, but did you know she’s actually Margrethe II, the Queen of Denmark!

Without pseudonyms, it’s possible much of the world and culture we know today would have never existed. In that online community that developed my confidence, we were all sort of fake names — honestly, I still have no idea if we were all 9 year olds on that forum, faking our way through maturity.

Anonymous:

- Doesn’t persist. 

Real name, state name, legal name

Names are stored reputation

Segregate the multiplicity of our lives. Decentralized. We already have a corporate vs personal account.

Names are powerful. Become persona that reflects voice or style better or be more iconic than name

Disregard your identity from work. Look past gender, race, etc.

Experiment with different genres

Express freely and honestly without fear of judgement, censorship, backlash

Mark Twain

J.K. Rowling

Dr. Seuss

Frida Kahlo

Satoshi Nakamoto

Spectrum

- Bits to narrow you down

Stagefright -> Cancellation

Social means everyone has more identities, everyone has a side hustle, everyone has an attack on not just you, but your network or your job or whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urtXRg9Nl3k

Stage name, pen name, alias

Okay but how do you actually boot up a pseudonymous account?

Cold start problem

Literally you start your reputation from scratch. It’s also hard to exist.

No mutual followers either.

People do not like non-human faces or fake names, especially if you have no mutuals.