Naming Yourself

Citizen Kane Microphone | Source

Is it a Rose by any other name, still?

On Medium, and other social networks, I go by Brennan K. Brown because when I first joined Facebook years ago, I’d get messages from total strangers thinking that I was Brennan Brown, the American actor. This never really bothered me, but it has made me more aware of my identity as a whole.

Through-out my teenage years I used to try to come up with a better nickname or pseudonym, something that was unique to me and only me. But none never were good enough to stick, and more often than not I just embarrassed myself.

There were also many attempts at naming side projects. I started solo bands called Sunset Under Betrayal, as well as First Angel East. The only one that really stuck was Brennen S. Augustin, which I then later shortened to Augustin.

But wait — why am I bringing any of this up, in the first place?

Over the past few months, I’ve come to enjoy writing on Medium quite a lot, and decided that I wanted to get serious about it. I figured the best way to do that was to create a Twitter account and Facebook page just for my writing. Maybe grab a custom domain, too.

But when I looked it up, I found that not only everydayessays.com was taken, but the person running it had fairly similar idea to mine. They also had the same Twitter handle.

I was a bit dismayed by this, but realized that I don’t really care about branding or identity, just that I did need one — in the same way people need names so we don’t confusingly just nod and gesture to one another haphazardly.

It didn’t take me long to settle on something new. The Wander Notebook, which was vaguely inspired by Keri Smith’s newest book, The Wander Society. I already have the Twitter and Facebook set up (although, admittedly, I’m not entirely sure how to use them efficiently), and the domain should be in working order in the next few days.

It’s difficult to say whether changing the publication’s identity will change how I write or what I write about. Or if being connected to a wider audience with social media will change anything, either. With everything else, I’ll just have to see after it’s already happened.

I’d also like to get some additional writers who have the same vision of classic blogging, but that’s probably just a daydream.

Stay tuned, though!

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About B. Kenneth Brown