The Social Media Identity Crisis

I have had many names online. My real name: Ashleigh shortened to Ash usually but once upon a time Leigh. My middle name, Paige. I’ve been endofapaige, ohitsash, tragiclittleworld, scarletsvision, a few more embarrassing names from my Dan and Phil era. Every single one has once felt almost offensively wrong.

Even offline I’ve played with nicknames; I’ve never really gone by anything other than Ashleigh that even introducing myself as Ash feels wrong on my tongue. I prefer Ash though, the way it looks, the fact that nobody can spell it wrong, I love the way it sounds coming from my best friends and my boyfriend. But I can’t stick to it, to me I’m Ashleigh, always have been always will be. It’s different online though, because I don’t have to hear myself say the words, so online I’m Ash, not Ashleigh, just Ash.

I find it fascinating that the world is obsessed with pseudonyms and aliases. I know so many people who go by a nickname online, or simply by their middle names like I have. Every time you change your name it’s like you’re a different person entirely.

Ashleigh is me, the quiet girl who listens to everything but has nothing to say, who thrived in academics and is itching to get back to it after a break. Ashleigh is who I am to my parents, the sarcastic kid who comes out with the weirdest things and laughs at her own jokes. The only one to answer when a question is met with silence and will pick up on a dad joke that will lead to fits of laughter that confuses the ones who didn’t listen.

Ash is who I am online. The writer, the sarcasm that doesn’t always come across right, a lot louder than I am in real life. The girl with a lot of opinions and the need to share them with everyone I can. Ash is who I am to my friends, the one who gets drunk first and has to sit on the floor in the bar bathroom before I can drink any more. I’m the one who will sit and try and solve space and time on a Wednesday evening when I’m craving Nando’s. The one who starts the questions about what old classmate is with who and where they are now when normal conversation dims. The one who swears a bit more than she should.

To very few, I’m Ashie. My cousins and my uncle, who don’t see me all that much, grasping to an element of me that’s still the little kid I was when they saw me the most. To my boyfriend, though he uses all of them. Ashleigh when he’s mad or I’m having a moment, Ash normally, but Ashie mostly. When we’re messing around and acting like kids, play fighting and licking each other’s faces. Ashie is when I’m dancing to no music, when I’m making weird noises, when I’m jumping around like I’m 5 again singing songs out of tune and getting the words wrong on purpose.

That’s my social identity: Ashleigh, Ash, Ashie. So why have I spent so much of my online life wanting to be someone else? Why have I wanted an air of anonymity when my entire online presence is centred around talking about my life in its most truthful form?

Once there was an element of embarrassment, the horror I felt if someone found my Wattpad or my Twitter. It’s not like that now, I’m proud of my writing because it’s one of the only things that makes me feel special. I promote my blog now to anyone who will listen, even if I only post on it thrice a year, I’m still proud I have it.

That’s why I’m changing it all again, I think. I’m bored of the pseudonyms. Though no matter how many times I change my name now, I think endofapaige will remain. Because endofapaige is who I am online, as close as I will get to me. A name my mother came up with rather than a generator like the others, a name that contains the part of my name that gets mentioned the least. A name that sounds right when I say it. Endofapaige is me.

It happens a lot, my need to remake myself. But for now, hi, hello, I’m Ash, not Paige, though you can call me that if you’d like. This is my blog, my life, my identity. I’m sure the colours and branding will change a multitude of times since now, though look at how much prettier the purple looks to the blue! But that’s enough name changing for me, I think. It’s time to start again, being true to myself, and making use of everything I’ve been given from my name to my sudden fascination in media fandom culture to my writing abilities.