There just isn’t any good reason to use your real name anymore

The youngest adult generation and the most online generation is frustrated with being surveilled and embarrassed by attention-seeking behaviors. This has instigated a retreat into smaller internet spaces and secret-sharing apps, as well as a mini-renaissance for Tumblr, where users rarely use their full names. (The majority of new users are Gen Z, according to Chenda Ngak, a spokesperson for Tumblr’s parent company.) The voice- and text-chat app Discord, known for a culture of anonymous and pseudonymous discussion, now has 150 million users; anonymously run hyper-niche meme accounts are suddenly the coolest, most exciting follows on Instagram. The group-therapy app Chill Pill offers a “world of future friends and better days” but does not permit the sharing of any personally identifying information. (I downloaded the app but can’t make a real account-I’m over the age limit, which is 24.)

Something has shifted online: We’ve arrived at a new era of anonymity, in which it feels natural to be inscrutable and confusing-forget the burden of crafting a coherent, persistent personal brand. “In the mid 2010s, ambiguity died online-not of natural causes, it was hunted and killed,” the writer and podcast host Biz Sherbert observed recently. I find this sort of exciting, but also unnerving. What are they going to do with their newfound freedom?

Now young people are trying to bring it back

In part, the trend is a response to security concerns. During the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, young people downloaded the encrypted messaging app Signal by the millions to avoid the surveillance they considered possible or probable on other platforms. Read More >