Mo Hax

Why a pen name?

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Ted Geisel, Eric Blair and I have at least a few things in common: real names that are difficult to remember or say (wassup Eric, you had a great real name);  a dear love of reading and writing; and an annoying tendency to speak our minds, politics, imaginations, even fantasies, creatively in public.

Of course, that is as far as any comparison really goes. I lack the hair, accent, comportment and exceptional talent.

How about that good ‘ol country boy Chris Gaines, *smirk* I mean, Garth Brooks (if that is even his real name)? I wish I could sing alt rock or country as good as that guy. Forget about the person who was once formerly known as Prince. Remember how people reacted to that?

My wife also recently completed an amazing novel and is shopping for an agent. We discussed pen names. We concluded, quite amicably, that she will use her maiden name over mine because it is just easier and more true to her as a person and author.

Writers have always enjoyed something of a separation of their creative persona and real lives represented in their pen name. A writer’s business is creativity yet they get to enjoy anonymity without it being questioned.

I go by Mo Hax for all the same reasons these characters are now barely remembered by their real names. We could get even more ontological and ask, What is a name really? Is your real name even really your real name? Do you even exist?

I do envy these guys. I don’t think Chris, Garth, Mark, Sam or Prince ever considered the real reasons to have at least some anonymity in today’s world.

[* I found this interesting exploration of the 'pen name' pros and cons from Michael Pollick.]

Compartmentalized identities a myth.

Intellagirl Tully (Sarah Robbins) first came on my radar from a podcast in which she was interviewed about Second Life. Rather new into it, she was teaching an experimental course in SL, although SL itself wasn’t the subject. She challenged students to focus on online behavior and identity and its impact on real life, absolutely fascinating stuff. She had them dress as Kool-Aide trademarks to experience bigotry at social events. She asked grubby guys in real life why their avatars where better groomed than they showed up in class. Anyway, she makes the very convincing argument that compartmentalized identity is a myth, though she puts it in different terms.

Today, no one can really hide–especially where business is involved–as Erica Driver points out in her tweet:

Is there *real* anonymity online anymore? Someone could piece together pieces one posts here or there and determine who you are. Why not use real identity online and project a positive persona? Also: in business context, there isn’t much room for anonymity.

[Remember these are compact tweets, give Erica writer's credit there. She composes excellent posts.]

Erica’s definition of ‘positive persona’ is likely not much different than mine, but probably not exactly the same and certainly different than that of thousands of others.

Anonymity is fleeting more now than ever just as is compartmentalizing our online identities, but anonymity still holds a very relevant place in life online, even business life.

Are you ashamed of your real name?

I am proud of my real name, as difficult as it is to pronounce.  I was once horribly summoned over a PA system, “Mr. Molesting, Mr. Molesting.” Despite this ugly error (and clue to my real name, not demeanor) my name carries the wealth and amazing history of sacrifice, belief, and love. Get to know me and I will share its wonderful origin with you someday.

Many reading already know my real name. I am sure after writing this that many more will come to know it. That is fine. I’ll give you a hint, it starts with Rob. I ask only that others respect my pen/avatar name and use it–especially on this blog. Besides, if you misspell my real name I will kill you.

Truth be told, I fell into Mo Hax. I could not use my real name in Second Life and wanted something short and easy for people to type and remember, a tip I stand by from this (now out of date) video tutorial. Mo is just so much more fun and convenient, not that Rob’s a bore.

Ironically I was once nearly banned from a sim just for being named ‘Hax.’ “I have never known a good ‘Hax’”, she laughed.

What are you afraid of?

Let me ask you. Why don’t you post your phone number and address online with your real name? If there is no point in anonymity why not let it all out there? Aha, I thought so.

I do fear what anonymity has done to far too many people on the internet and in real life. I try to remain positive about humanity in general but stop by any video or blog where there is an issue people really care about being discussed and you’ll find plenty of evidence. In one forum I posted:

Can we not return to civil discussion and consideration of all positions rather than insult and violence. As vehemently as we may disagree can we remember our humanity despite our positions on such poignant and long-lasting issues. Or has anonymity and angst cankered us beyond civil debate.

Using a pen name is very much like having an unlisted phone number. People, such as potential business contacts, can still find you it is just harder. This type of anonymity gets you at least a first defense against the lowest rung of type-capable humanity, some who likely have no problem using violence as a means to an end.

[Boy I wish I could share the stories of a good real-life friend whose profession it is to find these types and deal with them. He thinks we are all nuts for even blogging at all. Wait, did I just mark myself as an example of the unchecked fear in America that Moore suggests could be behind things described in Bowling for Columbine? I'd like to think I am more courageous than that. Guess not.]

People frequently and reactively misunderstand and jump to conclusions.

I am not talking about the trolls and flamers who live to cause mostly innocent problems under the guise of provocateurs. It seems that people online, and some offline, are misunderstanding, false assuming, and generally just not communicating enough to even make death threats against one another. How stupid is that? How ironic is it that in this miraclulous age of social computing the best defense against anonymity is anonymity itself?

Maybe it is the 140-character limit of our intellectual stomachs these days. Maybe it is the rampant narcissism from those that like to hear and write for themselves rather than listen (which I certainly have been guilty of before).

Whatever the reason I’d rather not complicate this problem in my personal life by making it easier to find me and my family when such blantent misunderstanding and hate arises. Go ahead. Call me a Moore chicken.

Trapped by association with business and personal network.

Now for the real reason, which is thankfully much less heavy than fear of death threats.  I’m just lazy. I have been using Mo for so long now that I have become trapped by how easy it is to just manage one identity, one username. I am Mo in both personal and professional contexts, mohax or imohax just about everywhere (just not the Russian rock band).

I know many avatars face the same dilemma. Ina Centaur, Jessica Qin, Dale Innis, Inarra Saarrinen come to mind, all avatars I admire and respect on both personal and professional levels. I always chuckle at Ina’s explanation of her twitter identity:

About: a 24 year old Californian Taiwanese girl in RL pretending to be old and WASP in SL; doc in physics/philosophy, but dabbling w/Shakespeare, theatre, and fiction

I had no idea, nor have I ever cared, about Ina’s true identity as remarkable as she is, a great avatar all by her/his self. On any given day, you would not recognize these people by their avatars. Suzy Deffeyes cracked me up with her tweet:

pixelq: Attending a business meeting with an eggplant avatar. I love virtual worlds.

These successful academicians, professionals, and artists do business everyday as their very creative avatars and others certainly trust them. Some readily reveal their real name, like Tamra Hayden, some on demand, and some attempt to maintain full anonymity. I am in the if-i-know-and-trust-you category, which incidentally is all that is required for business. It is almost as much a personal decision as changing one’s name legally in real life, just cheaper.

But what about business?

Depends on how you define it. Unless you are actually representing a company officially or making a financial transaction in the real world anonymity is A.O.K. One could easily argue that anyone not conducting or representing business online should be required to use a pseudonym though that does not dismiss anyone from civility. It certainly is the rule for my children, but they aren’t doing business yet (that I know of).

Remember those wonderful HR videos we dutifully watched, the ones that taught proper time and technique for removing our work badges before going into restaurants and bars?

Transparency is good and required in the proper context but many misattribute such a context when not needed.

One reason I manage Mo and Rob as separate identities is precisely because of  such business conduct guidelines. I carefully read our ground-breaking virtual worlds guidelines and concluded that, in fact, the best way I could follow them without creating an alt was using a pen name to figuratively take off my ID badge before doing anything in a virtual space. I also dropped all my work related groups before I discovered they can be masked. As in real life, I identify my real name and affiliation in forums where it is required. Everyone at my work can instantly look me up by either real or Second Life name on our intranet. Everything else is need-to-know only.

That said, I actually wear my real life on my sleeve much more than the average avatar. So much so  friends have actually cautioned me about it, as if they knew something I should hide more than I knew. Hummm, maybe I should talk to them again.

Our real names, personas, and identities are as much false masks as avatars.

It is no secret who I really am, but volunteering that to any and everyone just isn’t needed nor even rational. Work, politics, religious beliefs, hopes, dreams, even gender are ours for the sharing. We encounter Mo and Jane Does everyday at church, clubs, malls, schools, bus stops.  How is their anonymity any different? Until one needs to do business with such a person–and many times not even then–one needn’t know much of anything about them, as sadly as that sounds.

A Case Study, Just Hopefully Not a REAL One

Here’s a situation that taught me something about anonymity and the sticky matter of business in the virtual and real world, specifically Second Life.

I was contacted by an avatar in SL to provide some animations. I finished them up with the agreement that I still retained all rights and was just selling a full-perms, full-usage license, mostly so I could release them as BSD animations for use in OpenSim and elsewhere, which I did recently. They agreed and I completed the work after several revisions at their client’s request.

Of course I did all the work off the ‘day job’ clock and completely using my own resources, like many do here at my employer. It is also important to note that my day job has absolutely nothing to do with virtual worlds currently. This work had as much to do with my day job as the Command and Conquer LAN party my friends, sons, and I had over the holidays.

When payment time came (didn’t do half up front, half at end like usual)  I whimsically thought of trying PayPal instead of Linden.  The client ended up requiring an invoice for their finance department. This completely surprised me. I once ran a consulting business of my own, with invoices, licenses and all that so maybe I should have expected it. I had never done work in SL like that before. It had always been a notecard of agreement and some Linden transfers, which is what I did expect.

What would you have done?

At first I was tempted to just walk away but I had developed a good relationship. He and I are now FB real friends, which is an interesting tangent for another time. I did not know his company at all other than through this anonymous avatar.

Let’s pause to consider the legal discussion around virtual worlds and how it normally swirls around protecting companies from risk but little is said about risk to developers unable to verify the people hiring them as well.

The company turned out to be based in Asia and relatively small. I didn’t have a means of confirming that at the time, only the trust with this avatar friend. The personal trust we had was the only thing protecting me from a potentially elaborate phishing and profiteering scam for all I knew (yeah, ok, a little paranoid). I ended up making and signing an invoice as Mo Hax and sending it as PDF.

Next time I won’t do invoices. They are too ‘real world business’ where ‘in world business’ was all that was involved. But here comes the sticky part. Doing development work outside of Second Life cooks up an entirely different can of legal soba noodles.

Is business in a virtual world always real business? What are the criteria? Taxability? Trust? Licenses?

Like 99.99% of Second Life avatars, I am no lawyer, but it appears, from my reading of the Second Life Terms of Service that any and all transactions that take place “in world” are not legal transactions in the real world. Doing it in dollars through PayPal is technically a real world transaction.

The fact that Linden requires VAT to be charged on European products seems to conflict with my understanding of the “in world trade != real world trade” notion. The virtual economy legal space confuses me beyond words, economists and business lawyers too. It is the whole online commerce regulation conversation over again while rubbing your tummy and patting your head. Until all that precedent settles I will do the best I can in good faith, which means keeping the work “in world” and doing it as Mo Hax, not Rob <secret-unpronounceable-last-name>.

Had I completed the invoice as the real me I am pretty sure I would have invoked sole proprietorship law, which, in the US, automatically assumes your real name as the name of the business and is much more risky than even a tiny partnership or corporation requiring a license that cares nothing about pronouncability. “That’s right, first part like the stubborn animal, last part like the last part of the monster, or Puerto Rican Jewish sweat hog.” Besides, how many people selling things in SL have a real-world license? I am sure the sweat hogs don’t.

Doing everything as your trusted avatar name “in world” and for Linden, even by donation, seems best.

I know, all this fuss over a hundred US dollars, a few animationisms and some rushed LSL scripting. It really left me scratching my head. It also reinforced my use of Mo Hax to state I’m just an avatar.