How much about your online life do your family & friends know?

[Melooon]

When I first made my homepage it was very much a secret space where I could mess around; but over the years more and more people in my everyday life learned about it; these days EVERYONE knows about my sites, from my family to my barber; but that doesn't bother me. My sites have become part of who I am, so Im happy for people to see them; I actually feel like someone hasn't really met me if they haven't met my site

How do you feel about sharing your online personas with people in your everyday life? I know for many of you it might not be a choice, and for others you'll just prefer to keep a separation - but I'm curious to hear what people think - particularly in the old web community where we often reject the professionalisation of online personas - yet still have to be professional in life.

[Icey!]

I happen to be a little more shy when it comes to sharing things irl. (I got really bothered when my siblings would just shout out my channel name when we where going to the store.) I use to have a old channel for uploading stop motion animation which my whole family knows about, but I eventually stopped after getting demotivated by me getting called out on twitter (I was a really harsh critic back then)

When it comes to my new channel which is the same name as my internet username, my parents don't know about it's existence but my siblings do.

Point being that there is a lot of things I hide about my online presence from my family but I also do show parts of it from time to time.

[Onio]

Hmm, well, all my friends know about my professional portfolio, but no one I know IRL (besides for my best friend) really knows about my personal website project. I know I've only been doing the personal site thing since the beginning of the month, but I don't think I'll be sharing the news with anyone else, simply because I'm going to stop creating work under my real name and begin creating work under this 'Onio' pseudonym. I've already made the social media accounts that I used to post my professional work on private, and I'm going to take my portfolio offline next month, because I want to make a clean cut between the two identities. It'll be rough having to build my audience from scratch a second time, but I look forward to it!

[Guest]

Because I am on good terms with my parents and friends, they know about it all.

[tarraxahum]

Generally a lot of people knew of my online life. Definitely my friends. And my coworkers, thanks to specifics of my job at the time. I'm a bit more reluctant to share it with my parents for certain reasons, let alone extended family, altho mom gets pouty about it. Also my grandma found my art space some time ago and is now leaving comments and it gives me a heart attack every time 'cause I don't generally filter my art and what I'm saying online through 'is it acceptable to be shown to grandma' lense. I swear a lot, dammit!

Now that I sort of moved to a new nickname and moved a lot of my activity from big social networks to my website and such... Only my closest friends and a dozen of people who followed me from that social media when I offered a link still know who I am.

Nobody in my family speaks English that well, if at all, so I think I'm hidden for now

Don't get me wrong, I have a good relationship with my family. Generally.

But with certain views of theirs I'm not much keen on possible discussions that may arise if they'd be exposed to my online presence as it is! ^^"

[Cele]

Not much really? It's not like we have similar interests. Sometimes I show what I've worked on to the one friend that shares at least a little, but we tend to be in totally different fandoms.

We have good relations but I don't see why they would ever care what I do and it's not like I do anything online with "wanting to show irl people" in mind.

[strwbtea]

Family not much really.

My mum is a bit older and she does not fully understand how it all works. She knows I've met several friends from a different forum about a game I liked a few years back. Friends do know quite well, most of them I've actually met online so.

[Nippo]

Most of the people in my life know about my site but don't really care much about it. My family is aware that I have a website and that I take on various coding stuff, etc, but they aren't invested in the technology space to really care much about my specific projects. If they saw my website they'd just say "but Facebook is easier to use, why are you bothering?" My parents are quite old.

Friends, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. Majority of my friends are also not as invested in tech, and so I never had someone to relate to when it comes to programming. No one to really nerd out with besides through the internet. I love both my parents and my friends, but I definitely long for that person that I can relate to in a real life space.

[purelyconstructive]

Most of the people in my life know about my site but don't really care much about it. My family is aware that I have a website and that I take on various coding stuff, etc, but they aren't invested in the technology space to really care much about my specific projects. If they saw my website they'd just say "but Facebook is easier to use, why are you bothering?" My parents are quite old.

Friends, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. Majority of my friends are also not as invested in tech, and so I never had someone to relate to when it comes to programming. No one to really nerd out with besides through the internet. I love both my parents and my friends, but I definitely long for that person that I can relate to in a real life space.

I feel like my situation is similar to this. The people who know about it don't talk much about it, with perhaps one notable exception. If I am being completely honest...

Long ago, I was disappointed that very few people seemed to care about the things that I had put so much effort into, but then I realized that it was never my goal to get noticed. It was simply to share things that could be helpful to others. And hopefully, to work with people that can identify with those values in real life.

Therefore, I started to enjoy sharing again when my expectations became humble. People naturally focus upon their own interests and not everyone who appreciates what you share will tell you. This understanding led me to always try to give my best whatever the circumstances, and to be genuinely grateful for all of the comments and emails that I have received throughout the years. Sincerity means infinitely more to me than quantity.

So, cheers! You will find what you are looking for.

[RodFireProductions]

Most of my friends know I do game and web development so they should know I have at least one website. There's at least one connected to all my profiles I interact with them with. Not one really checks them though; if they do, they don't tell me. Most of friends aren't really into web development or the types of games I make.

Only one person in my family knows I have a website(s), my sibling. My family knows that I do coding but that's about it. I don't plan on sharing my websites or social media presence with any of my family but my sibling. I'm very open about my queer identity on my websites and socials that my family either doesn't know about or doesn't care for. My sibling is the only one that knows and cares since they're also queer.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Very few, and I like to keep it that way

My immediate family knows/cares little about technology so as long as I'm not getting into any trouble I should be fine.

My current classmates know about my internet moniker and that I'm "learning HTML", but I don't think they care too much about it. Which is great for me, because I do not feel comfortable sharing this side of me to them, I don't think they would understand why I'm doing this. I know there's one who thinks I'm learning HTML for portfolio purposes and seems to be eyeing me to design some sort of professional-looking website for them. I don't have the heart to tell them I'm using what little HTML skills I got to create old-fashioned and tacky websites on purpose.

I did talk about my website to older classmates, people closer to my generation. They... didn't understand either. They began calling me old-fashioned and why aren't I using a modern social platform like Instagram to publish my art and rack up likes and followers because that was "very important" in my line of work, or why wasn't I using an actual website-making thingy like Wix or any of those services that do everything for you but you have very little choice on how it looks. They called my HTML learning/skills useless, and they kinda implied I'd be the kind to bring a physical portfolio to show my artwork to a possible hiring place. It... hurt a lot, to say the least

So yeah, this is pretty much why I don't like to talk about my online persona to people from my corner of the physical world. In fact, I find it harder to have conversations more in-depth with them than in online, whether I'm writing them to myself or others, like I'm doing right now.

For an upside to this sorta sad story, I did manage to land a job with no Instagram no likes and no followers I think that friend got this wrong idea of that tale we all know about - about the fanartist who made fanart so cool and so popular that got hired at the company that holds the licenses of the thing they were making art from. I know this is a thing that happens, but I think it's not a reliable way to get a job. You'd have to be giving too much of your art and yourself for the sake of the algorythm to even start to get noticed by the big boys. And then, the big boys always have their own plans. Maybe they're not hiring while you're reaching your peak of popularity! Too unreliable.

Sorry, I think I went a bit off the rails with this conversation, but in a nutshell: there's been spots where people could learn about my online life, but they don't care and I'd rather keep it that way :omg:k:

[shevek]

Basically not at all; I don't talk to my relatives at all since a decade now, aside from my mother every few weeks. I don't have any social media they participate in anyway.

I do link my sites in my Discord bio and my Steam profile, but if we are being honest, no one sees that stuff anyway. I would not mind anyone actually in my life or in shared servers to discover these things, but they don't.
My girlfriend knows of my sites, and like one mutual friend; but even that is very limited. I have changed a lot about my sites and content, added stuff, got domains, etc. and the people around me usually check out a site like that once and then never again because it is not a feed, and they anticipate it to just be like the last time they visited (which is very fair).

So while I am ready to share a bit of it, I also don't really feel like rubbing people's noses in it; it's there to discover organically, which is admittedly rather unlikely.
I don't really expect much true understanding for it though, more likely there are just extremes: Either people who think this is all extreme magic and I am now a programming genius, or people who think this must be some drag and drop carrd-esque thing or made by someone else, like social media is, and I just entered some text.

[Guest]

My IRL friends and family know I use the Internet, but what I do on it is unknown to them. They don't know how I talk to other people, let alone if I do at all outside of them. They don't know my Valeria persona, where I'm online, and really any thing else I do. The only thing they know for sure is that I don't and won't use social media.

My online friends know a lot more about me, from preferences, likes, dislikes, pronouns, roughly how old I am IRL, etc. Online I feel like I can be who I truly am while in real life I'm stuck in various confines. I'm not sure if my IRL identity and who I am online can ever mix together.

[Mela]

I don't say much about my online life to people I know in real life. Currently I've talked about my website only to one friend of mine and sometimes I talk to her about some projects I have in mind.
My parents also know about it because I showed it to them when I had just started making it but they weren't much curious about it, so I mostly keep my it for myself. Maybe when I make my website better I will share it with more people.

[Guest]

My parents recently gave my website to my former elementary school teacher because she thought it was cool that I review vinyls.