Benefits of Anon Side Hustles
The Joy of Being An Anon Creator
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gm fren. Today, we’re talking about the importance of making anonymous accounts when you experiment with new creative projects.
It might seem counterintuitive at first. “Why wouldn’t I want credit?” The truth is, being anonymous is a superpower. And if I had to do it over, I would never have used my real name anywhere. Ever.
Let’s start by outlining the goal of any content creator. It may differ person to person, but I think this holds true for most of us.
Creators are after 3 kinds of satisfaction:
Internal - how creation makes you feel
External - how your audience reacts
Financial - your ability to put food on the table
If your creative side hustle can check off these three boxes, you’ve found yourself a dream job, congratulations.
Anonymous content creation doesn’t get in the way of these. If anything, it makes it easier to achieve these 3 goals.
Ego is the main reason most creators don’t go anon. There’s always a small part of us that wants to be seen, recognized, & celebrated.
But understand this: ego only makes it more difficult to become a creator.
By separating your creative persona from your real life identity, you can maintain a healthy relationship with creation.
Here are the benefits of doing that 👇🏻
Stop Talking About Creation
Talking about your side hustle draws energy from the same place that fuels your work. Have you ever noticed people that talk about starting a business, becoming a singer, launching a podcast etc. never actually do it?
It’s not just easier to talk about doing it than doing it. It’s more fun. Actually doing something requires real work. You have to get uncomfortable.
But talking about doing it is a blast. “I’m going to launch this podcast & put it on YouTube with clips & maximize SEO & become bigger than Joe Rogan.”
I’d been a creator for years before starting my horror channel. It was the first time I embraced being anonymous. It also happened to be my first real success. That was not a coincidence.
There was a real satisfaction in it too. People would ask me why I don’t have to work a normal job. And I would say something vague about the internet.
Play The Role
The truth about creation is that you create a specific persona. You play a character. You become some version of an archetype.
There’s nothing wrong with this. That’s just what people respond to. Look at any successful creator. They fulfill or define a stereotype about their niche. Stephen King. PewDiePie. Alex Jones.
In public, they “get into character.” This is an authentic version of who these people really are. But it’s not 3-dimensional. They’re not always that person.
By being anonymous, you can take your persona to the extreme. And to an outsider, that might be weird or cringe. But their opinion doesn’t matter. It only matters if your viewers love it. Fuck everyone else.
If you’re using your real name, then you'll forever be “the eating everything on the McDonald’s menu guy.”
And that would really suck.
Embrace Your Truth
When you create under your own name, that’s forever associated with you. Let’s be real here. We all think twice about what we post online. All it takes is one bad tweet & you get canceled forever.
Cancel culture is trying to fight the good fight. Ending sexism, racism etc. But publicly dog-piling on one random person doesn’t accomplish anything. This ends up doing more harm than good bc now everyone is afraid of “the mob.”
But here’s the thing. If you do it under your real name, you get fired & run out of public life. If you do it under your anon account… it actually helps you.
Anger is a powerful emotion. Social media sites figured this out. You’re much more likely to share something that pisses you off.
If you can get a specific segment of the population to hate you, ironically enough, they’ll promote your work the most.
After all, if nobody hates you, nobody loves you.
Creator-Life Balance
Being a public figure isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, most people that talk about it honestly say that it sucks.
Being an influencer IRL means you’re always wearing that mask. You’re always playing that part. It gets old quick.
Naval said it best.
And here’s the crazy part. Being famous doesn’t necessarily make you rich anymore. Once upon a time, it did.
But you can become a household name & not make a dollar from it tomorrow.
Don’t be that person.
Failure Isn’t Fatal
Having your name publicly attached to something means one thing. If it’s a failure, you’ll be the person that failed.
People try to put a positive spin on this. “Failure means growth.” But let’s face it. Failing in public kind of sucks.
Think about it like this. You publicly announced you’re starting a YouTube channel. You really wanna do it. You get 3 videos into it & realize this isn’t for you.
Well, what happens now?
You quietly stop uploading & hope that people forget about it. You’ll have your tail in between your legs for a few weeks & people will ask about it.
But what if you had done it anonymously instead? Another random account nobody knows about stopped creating content? Who cares?
This helps you craft your personal narrative. It’s only associated with you if you want it to be.
Final Thoughts
Anonymous creation is one of the great gifts of life. Many of the greatest writers and thinkers were completely anonymous to the day they died. People have been writing under pen names for a long time. There’s no reason we can’t continue that tradition. Especially when it comes with all these perks 😎