I recently received a reader email asking about how I blog anonymously. I sent her a (probably) way too long response and realized these tips might be able to help others as well, so here we are. Here’s what she said:
Hi!
I’m a fan of your blog and I love that you started it as something just for yourself that you then later made public for other people to interact with (thanks for that since I enjoy reading it!)
So I’ve been thinking of starting a blog for a little while now, but would want it to be anonymous, do you have any tips you used when you were setting up your blog to keep it anonymous? Or any other advice about how to stay anonymous? Thanks so much!
I’ve discussed the reasons why I began this blog anonymously and plan to keep it that way. There are good arguments for both sides, but overall you should do whatever you’re comfortable with – even if that’s having an online persona.
Now, first of all, I am in no way a guru on how to blog anonymously. In fact, I routinely joke that I’m bad at it since I let hints about my proclivity for finance and retirement slip out on the regular. For example, I accidentally mentioned to my dentist the other day that I’m retiring soon…I hope that doesn’t get back to work through the dental insurance grapevine…
Dental Hygienist: Why don’t you want to schedule appointments later in the year?
Me: Oh cause I won’t be here.
Dental Hygienist: Why not?
Me: Cause I’m retiring🤦🏾♀️#Oops #BadAtStealthFIRE— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) January 24, 2020
So if you’re looking for next level tips on how to blog anonymously, I would suggest checking out this amazing post from Our Next Life on How To Blog Anonymously Like A Secret Agent. After you’re done with that, feel free to come on back here and see how to blog anonymously from…basically the opposite of a secret agent, like the ladies in The Spy Who Dumped Me at the beginning of that movie (that film cracks me up), but I digress.
Here are my own personal tips on staying anonymous online:
Determine What You Will Share
There are innumerable levels of anonymity. I think it’s very important to decide before you go public what you will and will not share, especially if you have a partner, for example, and your finances are linked. Are they comfortable with you putting all those numbers out there? How about percentages? Are you both willing to reveal your income? Your expenses? Will you be sharing your net worth, but not your face or your % net worth increase, but not your location or your industry, but not your job title?
It’s easier to figure out those lines before you’re ‘in the thick of it’ so take the time to think about that for yourself and have that discussion with your partner if this involves them. I personally decided to be as open about everything as I could: all my numbers (net worth, income, expenses), my location, my industry and my history (where I grew up etc), but I’m closed lipped about my name and don’t reveal my face. Figure out what you’re comfortable with and stick to that.
Decide If You’ll Share Your Voice
Speaking of what you will and will not reveal, when I started this blog I didn’t put my voice in the category of “something I should decide if I want to reveal”…turns out I was wrong not to do that. After my very first podcast episode, I got a text from someone I hadn’t talked to since college saying they heard me on there and recognized my voice (WHAT?! We hadn’t talked in like 5 years at least and weren’t even close in college…)
So that’s another aspect of anonymity I didn’t consider and I’d suggest you think about how you would react if something similar happened to you. This is a risk, so prepare mentally for that or decide if it’s not worth the risk and don’t go on podcasts.
Brace Yourself For Media “Never Mind”s
Though it is not a goal of this blog to get ‘big’, I must admit, my heart does flutter when I see someone from a major news publication pop up in my email. It’s surreal to be contacted by outlets that I’ve respected my whole life. However, I quickly discovered that this excitement was usually short lived because most major media publications will not publish your story or quote if you are anonymous.
Understandably, they need to fact check their sources, which blogging anonymously doesn’t allow them to do. So just mentally prepare for that if someone reaches out to you for a quote – they’ll most likely say never mind once you say you don’t want to share personal information, such as your name or face. That can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.
Some people decide to not be anonymous for major media, only on their actual blog, which I find interesting. While my main concern is strangers knowing all my financial details, they actually seem more concerned about people close to them, not the strangers that read news sites. We all have different approaches.
Don’t Trust Instagram/Facebook
Since Facebook bought Instagram they have integrated the platforms, so be careful what you add to each. For example, if you are friends with someone on your personal and blog account, Instagram will start suggesting your blog account to other people that are friends with your personal account and that can out you quickly (yes this happened to me before I discovered it and shut that shit down). Similarly, don’t include your phone number on your blog account when Instagram asks for it in the settings. Basically don’t trust the Zuckerberg machine – it makes anonymity difficult.
Buy Domain Privacy
This is a boring, but very important tip. I didn’t know what domain privacy was until I started this blog. It’s an option you can choose when you’re setting up your website domain – basically you need to pay extra so people can’t look up the domain and see what name and address you used to buy your domain name.
Conclusion
This blog has brought an immense amount of joy to my life, but sharing all your finances online as many of us do in the personal finance space, can be difficult in our hyper-connected world. So if you’re thinking about starting a blog, do so at your comfort level, even if that includes a bit of anonymity.
Are you anonymous online in comment sections or on your own blog (if you have one)? Why or why not?
Will you become nonanonymous (or whatever the word is) after retiring? It’ll be nice to get on mainstream media more.
I’m not planning on it – I wrote about why in the below post, but overall the idea of more major media isn’t enough for me to want to come out of the ‘closet’ 🙂 .
https://apurplelife.com/2019/12/10/should-i-reveal-my-identity-online/
As someone who just started blogging I can say that my biggest reason for staying anonymous is the fact that I’m still holding a pretty good 9-5 job. Some of things I write about would not be accepted very well in my work place 🙂
I have a feeling that once I enter the early retirement phase I will feel more comfortable with exposing my identity.
Cheers!
Yep that’s a great reason to stay anon. Employers are weird enough as it is without knowing every detail of our financial lives (or what we’re saying about them…) 🙂 . Thank you for stopping by!
OMG! I love the spy who dumped me, too! I just showed it to my brothers and they died laughing. It was wonderful.
Right?! I love that movie. So funny and yet so dark, but still comedic. Fantastic. I might watch it again tonight 😉 .
It’s definitely hard to stay completely anonymously, especially when you start attending conferences and meeting people in person. 🙂
Very true 🙂 . I guess I could start wearing masks to FinCon and use a machine to make my voice sound like Bane’s or something 😉 .
Anonymity is near impossible with today’s technology. Sure, most people who land on your blog won’t learn your name or see your face… but with a little digging, people can find out who you are. If you’re trying to grow and monetize your blog – to help fund your early retirement – the loss of media coverage and other benefits might not be worth it.
Then it’s lucky I’m not trying to make money off this blog to fund my retirement 🙂 . If I ever make a profit (which I haven’t yet) it would be gravy on top that would fund me going to personal finance events. I also don’t love major media exposure in general – it brings out the trolls instead of people looking to learn – or so it seems. I’d be curious if someone could find out who I am simply from digging based on the blog 🙂 . Let me know if you accept the challenge. I imagine it will be a lot harder when I don’t have a permanent address in retirement.
Basically, I would be terrible at being anonymous because I’m a compulsive over-sharer. Helps a ton that I can be open at work – otherwise I’d have to be, I suppose.
Haha that’s a good point – I should add “analyze if you’re a compulsive over-sharer” to this list 😉 . Your work seems like a unicorn and I can hardly believe it exists 🙂 .
Echo many of the previous comments. Another thing to think about is how much traction you can get staying anonymous. We are not 100% anonymous but we don’t overshare on our blog either. The reason we aren’t 100% anonymous is for the traction reason. My other business gets cited in the media a lot so it’s helpful for there to be some overlap with my newer blog to help with domain authority.
Interesting – I haven’t heard of that type of anonymity before. Sounds like you’re anonymous for everyone, but Google 😉 .
And for further anonymity, you can use a writing style anonymizer helper: https://github.com/robincamille/nondescript
Oh mylanta…
Don’t you miss seonwoo? Lol can’t wait to see you miss my purple life 🙂
Haha yeah I miss having him around more often on the interwebs.
how has the coronavirus/related sell-off affected your retirement #s and plan to travel/geoarbitrage?
Check out how my portfolio changed this month on my numbers page here: https://apurplelife.com/the-numbers/. Nothing has changed with my travel plans. None of the areas I’m planning to go this year (Australia, New Zealand, Argentina) have been seriously affected and if they are and remain so in the fall I will adjust accordingly.
Nice write up. Sometimes I wonder if I share too much in my writing. Security issues do come to mind if I were to ever get big enough. You are right for sure the zuckerberg machine has me in its clutches. I guess I could purge Facebook and just roll off twitter. Id like to have the guise of Mr. MMP or something but Id have to go back and clean up so much lol. So daunting lol.
Great points and it’s really got me thinking of going anonymous. You make it seem very intriguing and worth it!
It’s up to you Jeff 🙂 and I’m curious what you’ll decide. Are you just worried about security issues or certain people in your life finding out? If it’s just security there are ways you can beef that up (there always seems to be new inventions/more we can do there). And it’s totally daunting to have to go back and purge an identity. I’m curious what you’ll decide to do – please keep me posted 🙂 .
Hola!
I am blogging anonymously mostly because at times I find myself needing to aggressively call out my own industry (healthcare finance). That can get awkward when you are still working deep in the field.
I enjoyed your talk on ChooseFI. Let me know how that short term ex-pat insurance works out pricing wise as you move into RE. If you run into any unexpected out-of-pocket costs let me know.
Max
Hi Max! That sounds like a smart reason to be anonymous. I too like to say some pointed things about my industry (and at times company) – I should add that to the pile of reasons I blog this way…So happy you liked the podcast interview! And I’ll definitely let you know! Thank you so much for offering your expertise. That’s very kind.
This was really helpful. I’ve recently started to blog so I appreciate you share this. What was it exactly that you purchased for your domain to remain private?
I’m happy it was helpful! That service is literally called “domain privacy” – you can ask whoever you bought your domain from how to get it. Good luck!
Hi there. May I know what platform did you use when you’re start blogging? It is wordpress?
Thanks !
Yep! I use WordPress
In my previous blog, I brace myself to join a community meet up, and got a shock because the other blogger there knows the in and outs of my company. (He has since left).
I stop writing in numbers. It’s impossible to be transparent without having the guts to be transparency. Would come back when I am more prepared – and less exposed I guess.
Oh WOW – that is surprising! I can see how that would be weird. Good luck!
I was just entertaining the idea of opening a FB & Instagram account until I remembered you posted something about blogging anonymously . I was actually checking your Instagram and was going to ask you your opinion. Is it worth it?
I do want to remain anonymous. Otherwise, I can see my writing bringing some issues into my work life that I don’t need. Or even people asking me for money and looking at me like a jerk because they think I am rich.
But I also recognize that some of these platforms can bring in more traffic. I am not looking for blogger celebrity status, but it would be nice if I get the blog to pay for itself 🙂
Do you still use your FB & Instagram or just limited to Twitter?
Worth it? I love Twitter more than anything.
Anyway, great post. I am excited for you. I hope you continue blogging through your travels.
I might be missing something, but you can have social media while being anonymous. I have and use all those channels while staying anon. It’s up to you if it’s worth it 🙂 . I just enjoy showing different aspects of myself, which is why I have multiple social media channels. I use them for different social purposes. Glad you liked the post! And yep I’ll be blogging weekly during my retirement travels for at least a year 🙂 .
I was just thinking about that possibility of appearing in one of coworkers FB feeds or Instagram. I would hate for that to happen.
I fear that Facebook might somehow link the accounts with friends and expose me.
I am still thinking about it.
Ah – got it. I’m not friends with my colleagues on social media so I imagine the chances of that happening for me are miniscule. And even if they somehow stumbled across my blog social media somehow I don’t share enough about myself at work that I think they would realize it’s me. To each their own though – if you’re very worried I wouldn’t risk it. Better to sleep well at night.