
Ask HN: How to ditch an established online identity and start over? - throwaway250618
I am active and known in a certain small industry in my home country (&quot;developing world&quot; kinda place) after 15+ years of online presence.<p>Over the past years I&#x27;ve been feeling constrained and unhappy with that identity. I also felt very alien in my home country and culture, both afk and online. Even my mother tongue and given name are not something I like. They all associate with the world I don&#x27;t enjoy nor support.<p>While I&#x27;m obviously not a native English speaker, I feel more &quot;at home&quot; while communicating in and consuming English and living in the Western society.<p>I moved to a western country, but online I was still &quot;there&quot;. Now I want to ditch my established identity and start afresh, under a new name. Distance myself from the culture I grew up in.<p>Of course, I could do all that without changing my name, but I feel like the old world would leak and haunt me.<p>Recently I came across the &quot;ex Muslim&quot; subreddit, and felt a weird familiarity. My troubles are nothing compared to those who grew up in a religious world and found the courage to leave and be vocal about it. But I could relate in a way. They feel like &quot;the old life&quot; is constantly trying to leak in and poke them.<p>It worries me, and I thought maybe we could discuss this type of cyber-rebirth, its caveats. Maybe someone has relevant experience and wouldn&#x27;t mind sharing.<p>- How do you make sure the old identity doesn&#x27;t leak into the new one? (apart from obvious technical non-contamination policy)<p>- Feels like starting from scratch in 2018 is harder than it was 15 years ago. Maybe it&#x27;s the other way around. I guess I&#x27;m getting cold feet.<p>- I want to write and create, but I&#x27;m worried that being this weird person who magically appeared on the internet just a few months ago would make people wary. Google my new name: the guy never existed before 2018. Where the hell was he?<p>- Will changing full legal name (first and last) bring lots of problems for years to come?<p>- Am I being silly?
======
ntlk
I cut ties with my old identity in two stages. First I rejected the country of
my birth, and then the gender I was assigned at birth. There are similarities
between that and what you’re trying to achieve.

Unfortunately, I found no reliable way to ensure the old identity doesn’t
“leak” into the new one, because I’m still the same person, and because the
changes I made were gradual rather than timed to appear as a single event.

I just had to learn to accept that if someone were to look, they’d still find
my old name etc. Luckily most people don’t care, and just accept what you tell
them about yourself. That’s to say that I found a way to be fine with it not
being a secret that a change has occurred, because it rarely matters to
anyone.

~~~
throwaway250618
I bet that was both exciting and extremely hard. Glad to hear you did it.

~~~
kreetx
I'm semi-anonymous: if you look hard enough you could find out, but the public
at large doesn't care. So I think if you change your accounts, you can keep
your viewpoints (keep expressing them) -- most won't make the connection.

------
throw7894512
I can relate, I'm almost at the end of the same "process". Originally from
eastern Europe, moved to UK 8 years ago, acquired UK citizenship (kept my
original one too), changed my full name in UK to a western sounding one.
Currently at the stage of getting UK passport with UK name and keeping old
name on original passport - the process is not exactly straight forward, but
possible due to certain "loophole" in the law. This way I will (hopefully)
effectively have two official identities, won't look like a weirdo when I'm
back in my homeland and won't have to spell out my original name for the
thousandth time on the phone when I'm in UK. Despite of what some people will
tell you, prejudice is real, so if you feel like a cosmopolitan - change your
name, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about absence of history if someone
"googles you", in the end you will win more than you loose.

~~~
throwaway250618
>Despite of what some people will tell you, prejudice is real

I’m constantly going back and forth between “nah, people are generally sane
and good, they don’t just think in stereotypes and names don’t matter” and
“oh, god, they all have a strong impression even before they meet me, and it’s
probably negative”.

But in the end, I’m sure prejudice is real.

------
shyaccount123
I like my identity, but somehow I wanted to erase my online presence. I like
to write, draw and also want to create a youtube channel, but i don't want to
associate with it in the physical world.

So, I think I can relate to this question.

What I did? 1) I went ahead and deleted all possible accounts I could which
appeared in the google search. 2) I am looking for a new online name now. I
will then create content and be active on social media (not facebook) through
that name. I'd be happy if my friends and colleagues don't know about it.

P.S my first ever comment on HN since 2008. I would just read HN before
without login.

~~~
throwaway250618
Thanks for your reply.

Good luck! I hope your new name and online identity will be a pleasant
adventure.

------
HelloNurse
You seem to have several problems that shouldn't be confused.

1) You dislike your home country and culture, for reasons you keep private but
can be assumed to be very unpleasant. This is a concrete and objective issue
(uncomfortable life in a "developing" country, enemies, etc.) and moving to a
western country solves the problem quite effectively.

2)You abhor your native culture, even your mother tongue and your name, as
ties to your disliked country. This is a psychological issue, and your main
strategy should be not allowing it to have a negative impact on your
happiness. Which brings us to…

3) You are allowing your online ties to pull you back to the country you have
left. These ties need to be cut as extensively as possible, but not with
dramatic means like changing your name.

Abandon social media account, possibly email addresses, personal sites, forums
and the like; people disappear online all the time, and everybody will simply
do without you. Of course you could easily keep a few trusted friends.

4) Stubborn and enterprising unwanted people could ask themselves whether you
have new sites, accounts etc. and look for you; hiding identifying details (no
photos, using pseudonyms rigorously, no addresses, date of birth etc.) can
protect you from casual identification attempts.

5) Regarding less casual identification attempts, what's the worst thing that
can happen if you are identified? A warrant to arrest you? Hated relatives at
your door? Debt collection? Embarrassment for something you cannot undo?
Traveling to your present location should be a useful barrier to entry for
anyone who wants to bother you in person instead of being ignored online.

~~~
throwaway250618
Thank you, this is very helpful.

1) Yes, this was one of the best things that happened to me.

2) Again, thank you for formulating that in such a clear way.

5) Yeah, nothing like that, luckily. No enemies I know of, no debts or hated
relatives.

Your comment made me think in a refreshing manner.

~~~
HelloNurse
From an external point of view you are just an emigrant with new personal and
professional interests. Your old online acquaintances are not likely to care
about your "retirement" except to wish you well or as a small loss; if there
are exceptions deal with them individually.

------
WaltPurvis
> _I 'm worried that being this weird person who magically appeared on the
> internet just a few months ago would make people wary. Google my new name:
> the guy never existed before 2018._

I am continually surprised by the number of people I meet/know who are highly
accomplished in their careers yet have no discernible online presence — no
Twitter, no Facebook, no (discoverable) forum comments, no blog, etc.

I have occasionally tried to look up old classmates and found that they have
_no_ online presence. They're on no social media. You can't even find a photo
of them in Google images. I hear through the grapevine that they have
families, own businesses, etc., but you'd barely be able to tell they exist
via the Internet.

I guess that might be less common in technical fields, e.g., software
development, but in general there are _many_ such people.

I wouldn't think anything was weird if one of these highly accomplished people
suddenly started blogging and Twittering and such. So I wouldn't worry about
that part of it.

~~~
duxup
I've been looking for a job and when I talk to some executive I'll look them
up and like you noted... nothing but a LinkedIn profile and a short one at
that.

------
drdeca
You talk about establishing a new _online_ identity, but also about changing
your legal name. For an online identity, do you intend for it to be easily
connected to your (new) legal name?

If you were using a pseudonym not clearly tied to any legal name you have or
have had, I am not sure why people would think it odd that the pseudonym
arrived all of a sudden.

I have been fairly sloppy in keeping my different pseudonyms separate, (though
I personally don't have much reason to work particularly hard to keep them
separate) so this might be less informative, but I've never really had an
issue with people thinking it odd that a pseudonym of mine appeared suddenly.
On the other hand, I haven't published much of note, so that might be part of
why.

If you intend to use a pseudonym, but one which is clearly connected to your
new legal name, perhaps you could introduce the pseudonym without connecting
it to your new legal name, and then after a bit, once the amount of
recognition and/or time that you think is appropriate has been obtained/has
passed, start connecting the pseudonym to your new legal name?

~~~
throwaway250618
>For an online identity, do you intend for it to be easily connected to your
(new) legal name?

I'm not going to change my legal name any time soon, sorry for a somewhat
confusing explanation. I was just thinking if that new online identity is
alive and successful (subjectively), then, in the future, I might consider
changing my legal name accordingly.

------
TheQwerty
I don't have any advice but...

> While I'm obviously not a native English speaker...

This is absolutely not obvious from your posts - don't be so hard on yourself!

~~~
hluska
I second this. Seriously my friend, I know native English speakers who don't
write nearly as well as you do!

~~~
throwaway250618
Thank you both, this made me smile and feel really good. One of those warm
moments.

------
anotheryou
don't worry, delete what you can, create new content that flushes the old to
page 2 of Google, be honest about having a different past if confronted
(people that can't accept that are not worth your time anyways)

enjoy reinventing yourself!

I'd only be worried if you e.g. would do political journalism on somewhat
Muslim related topics. in that case a full disclosure would be better or it
might be used against you.

as for disliking your name: maybe you can find an additional nickname. I'd
think twice about throwing out your "real name". I hope your relationship to
your origin will relax over time. over time you hopefully can fully identify
yourself with who you became and who you are and the past doesn't even matter
so much anymore and than there is no reason to cut any ties anymore either.

~~~
throwaway250618
I do have a feeling this might be an overreaction of sorts, so yes, you're
probably right and my relationship to the origin will relax over time.

Another issue is hidden discrimination or just stereotypes. Continuing with
the Muslim analogy, imagine a caucasian non-religious western dude named
Muhammad with a weird last name that doesn't sound like anything familiar
anywhere on the planet except for one country. This is something I had to live
with. When people hear my full name, they usually think of a certain culture
and religion, and it has nothing to do with neither me nor my appearance.

~~~
anotheryou
I'm a white western male I really shouldn't give any advice on the problems
with racism...

I of course hope it would be OK to be honest and simply ignore those who are
racist, but maybe being pragmatic the sad truth is that hiding it avoids
racist prejudices... Still a nickname might work fine for anything but
official things like applications.

------
oldcynic
> magically appeared on the internet just a few months ago

You mean like everyone else just after they join reddit or HN? Same for
blogging - there's plenty blogging and YouTubing under some cute handle rather
than their given name. Plenty change names from marriage or other reasons such
as abuse, witness protection or gender reassignment. More than a few have
chosen to disappear, including Why the Lucky Stiff who was quite famous for a
while.

All you have to do is establish a few karma points, i.e. gain a little
credibility online, and vanishingly few will care what you're called or if
you've always been throwaway250618.

If you go on to instigate a huge scam _then_ people will put some effort into
history and doxxing.

~~~
throwaway250618
I think you’re right, but the importance of some history to the credibility is
higher in certain areas. If I write an article and post it on HN, then yes, I
don’t think people here care too much about my public history, procided that
the article is interesting.

But if I decide to write and sell a book or produce a paid course, then having
no history related to the field I’m trying to be an expert in feels pretty
sketchy.

I can say for myself: when I’m considering buying a book or a course, I
research the author.

~~~
oldcynic
I would too for a technical book or course, to a point. Mainly as so many have
managed to successfully sell garbage. ;)

A refund policy and giving away a couple of random lessons or chapters should
cover credibility there. Some months blogging in that niche and some
reasonably written code over on github should be enough background for casual
searching. Build the rest as you go. I don't think it's too hard to stand
apart from the Internet Marketer types.

You probably don't need much background for a $29 ebook or video course to
sell, you probably do for a $1,999 on site course.

------
bloak
There are two separate questions here: the one on online identity, and the one
on changing a "legal name" (whatever that means). Using a pseudonym online is
perfectly normal, in my opinion. I seem to recall that the British police and
British school teachers advise people to use a "false" name online, unless
there's a good reason not to, as a basic safety tip. So schoolchildren need a
good memory to remember all the different names their friends use for
different social media accounts. The different names people use could easily
be linked by a police investigator, and perhaps by a determined private
investigator but it's all rather opaque for the casual googler.

~~~
throwaway250618
I've started the process and, except for a few places like Twitter, many
online services and communities make it pretty hard to use a pseudonym.
Especially when it comes to restoring a lost or hacked account, when you have
to confirm your identity.

~~~
krageon
This is true and unfortunately hard to solve. Thankfully, you can prevent
losing an account in the first place by replicating your passwords/secrets to
more than one place (that you trust not to explode together) and being
diligent about fixing failures in that system. For every account where I have
done so, I have not lost credentials in over ten years.

As for having your accounts "hacked", the only advice to be given is digital
sanitation: Regularly scan your machine, don't give information to places you
don't know, don't download shady executables (or if you do, definitely don't
execute them outside of a sandbox). These are all good practices regardless,
it's just that for you they have become essential practices to keep your
accounts.

------
newest_user_
It should be relatively easy to ditch an online identity. Start with changing
your email (no mail forwarding either), then set up new accounts for the
services you care about.

I changed my identity on HN and reddit all the time -- just create a new
account. Of course these services could probably connect new with old just by
IP address, but I don't care about that. What I'm actually doing is gaurding
against something coming back to bite me in the ass years later (an unpopular
opinion, lapse in judgement, etc).

Cahnging legal stuff, that depends on your country.

------
Rjevski
Related: [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/47293/how-
can-s...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/47293/how-can-someone-
go-off-web-and-anonymise-themselves-after-a-life-online)

------
auganov
I think it's fine. It's just probably 10x easier to get 80% of what you want
if you aren't as strict about doing away with your old one. You can do a name
change and all that without completely vanishing. Does the odd obsessed fan or
hater really matter?

------
TimeOutBoss
You can refer to this book[1] which lists links to delete your accounts

[1][https://inteltechniques.com/data/workbook.pdf](https://inteltechniques.com/data/workbook.pdf)

------
Kagerjay
I had several other pseudonyms that I use to use. One of them had half a
million youtube views and thousands of subs associated with a game I used to
play and I used to make guides read my hundreds of thousands of people and
translated in multiple languages, I ended up deleting any association I had
with it since I moved on with my life.

I had another pseudonym where I was one of the most richest players in a mmo
with several million players. I used to post guides on how to make virtual
money. I long since parted with that one too.

I also had another pseudonym account where I partially managed one of the
largest online collaborations ever done, ironically I don't even tell people
about that either. I look up that username and I see it referenced in the
major news outlets.

I had another pseudonym that had too much namespace tech buzzwords associated
with it, it was my github account, so I had to rename all my accounts to this
one.

In another pseudonym, I had some batshit crazy moments in my life. It mostly
stemmed from never talking about anything I did in the above, among other
things. Because of some social stigmas at the time I couldn't really go see a
psychiatrist. I ended up writing a 100,000 word post to myself, so I could
learn more about why I have these insecurities. I learned about the things
holding me back in my life, my regrets, etc. It mostly had to deal with
superiority complex because I did lots of crazy impressive shit that no one
knew in high school. I realized that growing up as well I maintained dual
personalities (online and real life) from elementary to high school. Also, it
was because I had multiple hidden disabilities that not even my family knew
about. For the longest time I never accepted that fact. I ended up deleting
that pseudonym one out too.

I don't know why but I've always had issues with attaching my name to a
pseudonym. Maybe I'm paranoid, I don't know. I just have never been the type
of person to showcase my work. I actually took some pride in that. I learned
the hardway at my first job I ever had when I got fired from it, how its not
what you do but how you showcase it

But, I made this pseudonym with the intent purpose that anyone who dug far
enough can find my real name if they wanted too. But I also have insecurities
about publishing things about my life, work, etc and I started as of last week
to publish it openly. Mostly because I recently also decided to go to local
tech meetups. I didn't realize that random people found things I do actually
interesting. I have tons of interesting things I want to blog about but I
don't know if it might haunt me later legally. My writing sometimes suffers as
a result of privacy paranoia. I grew up dealing with legal issues my entire
life so I'm always thinking of worst case scenarios.

I also intend on making youtube / DIY tutorials as well, am strongly
considering setting away this pseudonym so I can have something more
marketable. With my face on every video, etc. I feel like a lot of my
potential is wasted if no one knows about it.

I don't know if that helps you out or not. Truthfully, online identities and
whatever is just whitehat and blackhat SEO at the end of the day.

What has helped me is accepting and appreciating the old identity(s) for what
it was. So long that I accept it is what matters the most. Also, accepting the
fact that no one is truthfully going to dig that far deep, unless its the
government,SO, an internet troll, someone that really hates you, or a
recruiter. My name is considered fairly common so even if I hit the news
nothings going to change.

I don't think your being silly here. Also this was very painful for me to
write too. Just be grateful you aren't caught doing stupid stuff in public
that went viral, etc. Or incarcerated, wrong place at wrong time in the eyes
of the law, etc. That could seriously hurt your prospects in life.

