You know what’s a tragedy in its own right? I have a very unique name. My first name is pretty familiar, but my surname is so rare that only about eleven other people in the United States share it with me. It’s the kind of combination that would make anyone looking for brand recognition envious, and I can’t say I disagree. Too bad I’m not pursuing a career as an actor, because I wouldn’t have to fight other SAG-AFTRA members for my right to use it. And I would’ve gotten a laugh out of the Emmy presenter struggling to pronounce my name.
But sometimes it’s a little too individualistic. You’re going to know who I am. I’m not going to be granted the same grace of anonymity that my Jane Doe-esque named mother has. Even now, if I search up my name, the only thing that pops up are school-affiliated pages, my LinkedIn, and my lonesome little one IMDB credit (for a production I technically didn’t even work on, but that’s a story for another day). I have no privacy online, and even when I was eight years old and browsing the internet regularly did I understand that.
For everything I’ve ever done, I’ve never used my name. Never for social media. Never mentioned online. Even my professional email was something I only created in 2019. Hell, my online friends didn’t even know my real name until two years in. My overly cautious tendencies means that the only thing out there that involves my name are things that I want to associate it with.
But here comes a problem. It seems like everything I’ve ever used in my name is destined to be some of the worst things I’ve ever produced. If it’s directly associated with me, it’s destined to fail. Even this blog is my first real venture into associating something with me by (partial) name. I could get all the immediate recognition I desire if only I wasn’t scared to take a chance with it.
I noticed the repeating trend a few years ago. It’s true. The more distanced it is from me, the more suppressed the identity, the more successful it becomes. I’ve had several projects and blogs under hidden identities that have always achieved some form of recognition that I can’t scrape up with my name.
In a funny way, I kind of like it, though. Even with the immediate association my name would bring, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about using it in a professional capacity, anyway. The feeling of separation gives the illusion of a barrier between my life and my work. That, and I just like having no one know a single thing about me. But I have developed the subconscious bias that in order for something to work out in my favor, it just can’t be in my name. Maybe it’s a trend I’ve noticed, but I like to deem it as my own little superstition.
HAPPY 
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