Wear Your Face

So, to preface everything I’m about to say: my first real blogging platform was Tumblr (still is; nowhere else on the Internet hosts quite a nest of personalities who love topics ranging from the occult to fandom to history quite like Tumblr does). On Tumblr, one of the fastest ways to realize a bot‘s real identity is if its icon has a human face.

That might give me an admitted bias when reading all these articles about why people don’t follow back on Medium or really any social media sites: some of their points are valid (having no bio is a solid one that sticks with me, from blogging to games like FFXIV where you can put search information for your character in player search), but the one that always gets me is

“If you can’t take the time to post up a cute selfie as an icon, how do I know you’re human? How do I know you’re real? How do I know you’re serious?”

It makes me laugh every time. In an era where companies are faking employee accounts as mass PR campaigns against the tides turning to pro-unionization, stealing faces from stock photos and even other social media profiles, you expect me to quantify humanity in a face?

The other thing that makes me laugh about it is that I was raised in that era where they first taught kids about computers. How often did Mickey Mouse scold my classmates for clicking the wrong option in his mini-game, all about sharing their name and face online with strangers? How many times did he praise me for refusing to do the same? I was trained into this kind of behavior that these programs and superhero comics as I was growing up, where the ultimate nightmare was the same: strangers knowing your true name and hurting you and your loved ones with it. It was better to have a fake or safe name to give out to appease social etiquette, navigate things safely, discard local slang to make sure they couldn’t find you through referring to freeways as “The [Insert Number Here]” or by what you called carbonated beverages, play make-believe with features of your life to keep yourself safe from predators.

It was always better to Not Be You. It still is, to some degree, better to be Not You.

Clark Kent was the front for assimilation, Superman the truth he was hiding. If either identity was found to be connected to the other, it could spell disaster for him, his loved ones, and his ability to help others. This was the kind of fairy tale I grew up with, again and again: Batman was the defiant knight, Bruce Wayne was the kind lord. If either were connected to each other, it meant game over.

All of this was reinforced by my father telling me, “Even if it’s not true, find out what the teacher wants to hear and tell them that.”

Truth is a currency. My truth is the most valuable thing to me. And you want me to roll over and bear my neck to any passing blades in the night to bear my truth just…to prove my humanity? As if my words don’t prove that?

The other thing, too, is that it reveals a particular privilege in safety. You’re safe to put your face up, and thus you assume it of all others. I know I can’t put my face up onto the Internet: if I did, my conservative American family would find it, and my identity as a non-binary anarchist would come to light, and I would be homeless. Essentially, it would be as much of a game over for me as Batman to have my home identity as a cis female Republican be exposed as a fake.

Hell, if a white man can be doxxed as the internet’s next “chosen” community sleuthing, have people constantly threaten him and invade his privacy, I’m certainly not going to risk it.

So, to put it bluntly, I am not giving you my face for your own comfort.

I am not putting myself at risk for your solace in the ability to supposedly read all of my life experiences to prove I am human by a face.

And, honestly, once I do procure that safety when I move out, I may never share my face online. I plan to do streaming of video games in the future, and I’ll never use my natural voice for that, having already gotten a voice modulator and adjusted it to what I want to sound like to others online. My truth is not a granted for your sense of security. I have been burned too many times to simply trust like that, even with personas and similar security layers. My icons will always be varied and odd, never being my face in any way, shape, or form.

This does not make me less of a person. On the contrary, this makes me concerned about my safety online, someone who doesn’t want to be tracked easily, and someone human in my desire to be me and to share that with those I trust and care for.

In a world where algorithms are determining beauty standards, I am opting out. In a world where we try to make our lives seem better by lying on the Internet with staged pictures, eternally trying to one-up each other by near-truth fabrications, I am opting out.

You are not owed my face.

If the spirit of words and communication cannot track as human to you, I’d suggest you do a bit of introspection.