So like, I was getting people's comments anonymously and people's callousness was alarming. In fact, to the point where it put me into a bit of a depression because it wasn't just a case of no, which I know lots of people feel, but just the way that people would say things became very hurtful
Rocío (Ro) Christensen
@rocio · 3:28
A name carries so much, right? Whether you choose it or it's been given to you or it's been handed down, like through generations or the origin of it, even the poetry behind the name, how much of that comes into how we act in our day to day? How much of that defines who we are?
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 3:05
And it was full of people submitting these secrets, some of them just horrible and kind of terrifying and others completely heartbreaking and just really sad. And I think there's something about Anonymity that actually lets people express even more of their humanity, for better or for worse. And I do think that some of that hatred and discrimination and fear is very human
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
When you die, your name is all you leave behind. So in that sense, your humanity, who you are as a human, is all captured in your name. I really like this question. I think this really makes let me think. And it also brings to mind how anonymity has led to so much vitriol on the internet and social media platforms
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:58
I think the Holocaust taught us some really interesting things about names. People were given numbers and not names. And I also know slavery. Same thing. People were given names that weren't their names, and they were assigned numbers, and they were signed all sorts of horrible, dehumanizing things
If anyone is willing to behave differently when a camera isn't present, when an image of an eye isn't present, when someone isn't watching them give their charitable donations, when someone isn't watching them type out their response online, I don't know that a name is required for some of these things, right? In those other spaces, there's an anonymity of name, but you still have someone's face, and that causes change of behavior
Wren .
@aBirdieOnaWire · 4:20
I think that kind of payments parallels with, well, no one really. I'm not being watched. I think there's this sort of distance you feel when you're online and allows people to be kind of ugly