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Should I use a pseudonym for my social and artistic pursuits? What are the pros and cons?

• I am weighing whether to use a pseudonym for my social and artistic pursuits. I currently am relatively well-known in my professional and business circles. I am also becoming more well-known in social and artistic circles, through a combination of journalism, event planning, and performance. These are hobbies of mine, and are not professional pursuits. I am considering adopting a pseudonym for uses in social+artistic contexts. Imagine if you met someone at a business conference and you google this person, and all you see is information about this person's DJ'ing hobby. It doesn't help and it might hurt. Similarly, if someone asked if they could DJ at your party or perform in your show, and you google them and all you see is their professional accomplishments. It doesn't help and might hurt. Especially among people that throw parties or produce shows professionally, it might hurt for them to perceive you as a hobbyist. Note: If you google me, what you see is mainly professional accomplishments. I don't yet have a large web footprint for my social or artistic activities. I haven't begun building my web presence for my artistic portfolio. Luckily for me, I don't care if people "discover" that I have two names. I simply don't care. It's not a secret. So now that my visibility is increasing in a social and artistic context, I am wondering if I should adopt a pseudonym right now. The main problem for me is that I am not established artistically, and the fact that I am a hobbyist with a healthy professional life actually works against me. So a pseudonym might help. Pros: * Separation of promotion. People in my lives tend to fall into one of the two worlds. A few fall into both worlds. (But I don't have three or more worlds, thankfully.) * Easier to control and separate my professional image from my personal image. Cons: * Do I have to start introducing myself as my pseudonym? Should I get my pseudonym printed on my social cards? * Maintaining two identities (twitter, facebook, etc.) can be cumbersome and time-consuming. * Do I tell all my facebook friends to switch to my pseudonym? Other pros and cons?

• Answer:

  I am about to go into this endeavor for some of the exact same reasons. Reading my situation from your perspective helped solidify my decision. Here's some food for thought: If you don't care if anyone knows that you have a pseudonym, that defeats the point of having one in the first place. Definitely create two facebook accounts, and be open about adding people who know about both worlds. Explain to them the situation and don't make a big deal out of it. You don't have to make running separate social media accounts a full time job. Surely there's an app out there that  can help you with this. Keep your pseudonym's social media strictly professional. You should start introducing yourself by your pseudonym in relevant circles. Sure, create your own separate business cards, because you are promoting a separate, unassociated business. Lastly, K.I.S.S. : keep it simple, stupid. Don't worry about tripping out or someone finding out the truth. Just enjoy the ability to create without consequence.