On Prismatic Identity

The founder of 4chan, moot, has talked about an concept he chose to call “prismatic identity”, which is facilitated through anonymous internet posting or use of distinct internet usernames in distinct contexts or communities. Myself being part of the first mainstream internet generation I have always made use of this as to me its strengths are obvious from the indivudual's point of view. It is why writers have always used pseudonyms. It's also clear how foreign this would be to someone with a “usual” injective style of identity i.e. One person, one name. A prismatic identity avoids the trauma of the individual's reliance on his personal identity from his collective societal labels and roles such as his role as a father, neighbour, employee, etc. A person trapped with a notion of who he is due to the lack of other vehicles that multiple internet personas allow. Names are after all arbitrary, and political and religious beliefs are surreptitiously imposed on us by our surroundings. Still this is the norm, and the assumption by the masses that individuals do have injective identities can only manifest itself even more deviously in high profle figures: these people in the public mind are an empty puppet devoid of humanity. If needed his “bad” “public” qualities can even be concealed, he is clean to the point of meaninglessness, he never drank alcohol, he was never promiscuous (unless that will make him more relatable, in which case he did).
For example, let's say someone is a fantastic musician and also a horrible rapist. On the one hand the music he makes isn't less great because of his monstrousness, nor is he excused from punishment for being a great musician. They are separate aspects of his identity, subject to scrutiny in different contexts. One of Slavoj Zizek's favorite scandalous example of this is how, in their spare time from commiting some of the greatest crimes against humanity, nazi generals woud get together and play classical quartet pieces. Politically this is even more dangerous, though it is also the norm, that leaders aren't chosen based on their competence but by popularity through propaganda. Take for example the prerequisites for being a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States: he can not be a atheist, he can not have been a avid drug user, he can't have been a communist sympathiser, etc, among other attrbutes not directly linked to being a good leader, only if these attributes are concealed from the public.

Let's assume for example that I'm a great leader and I'm leading properly and improving the overall situation of the country, yet at home I masturbate to fecal gay pornography. Does it impair my leadership abilities? No. Can the the public know bout it? No. Should the public know about it? Not necessarily. And that's the point of prismatic identity, anonymous or not. That in each context one is allowed to have a fresh identiy, with only the relevant characteristics being taken into consideration, and be allowed to contribuite to a discussion. Thre are other far reaching implications of prismatic, quasi-concealment. For example: who curtails more stigma against homosexuality? The loudmouth demanding activists at rallies, or pop stars such as Freddy Mercury, Elton John or George Michael? These artists weren't in the closet in their private sphere of friends and familty, yet the public remained ignorant and accepted them for the artists they were, not as just gays. Decades later their coming out makes it easier for the public to accept homosexuality as normal since they can retroactively assertain that it has no bearing on people. Their idols were gay. On the flipside getting yourself marginalized does nothing in the long run to favor your cause.

An interesting case study to discuss this identity issue is John Wayne Gacy, the killer clown, an american serial killer who worked as a clown at children's parties and was also an avid painter. Again, his killing aspect, while reprehensible doesn't imply he was unfit as either clown or painter, they are unrelated prismatic identities. The families if the victims, in their angst, didn't see it that way. In June 1994, one month after his execution for his thirrty plus murders, they bought his paintings at a public auction and burned them in a communal bonfire, most likely for the sake of closure, even though the execution had already been carried out. The implication here being that if an evil man creates something, all he creates is also evil. A rather drastic example of extending an individual's supposed injective identity even to outside objects. As anyone sane can agree though, if there is such a thing as evil, it is certainly not a watercolor landscape of Vienna.