While at IndieWebClub Bangalore, Tanvi, an attendee, brought up, how anonymous content drowns in the internet ocean full of bot/LLM gen content. I think I can do better than that, and chose a title with a delibrate style that’s implausible for an LLM to generate. As another mechanism for adding my personality, I will make this article read like a fever dream. I will talk about each word in an abstract way and somehow try to tie them toegther at the end.
Masks
The first word here is ‘Masks’. Primitively, people use mask to hide their faces and all you see is the mask. The mask can represent a lot of different things, you may be a cockroach mask at a protest. It allows us to represent useful things.
If you have had to hide something, chances are you have masked in some way. Masking is a common term in neurodivergent communities because as a vulnerable population they don’t want to attract special negative attention. Masking can be a useful defense in a variety of situations. For instance, it can be useful when I am in my hometown in Uttar Pradesh, which is not particularly famous for safety, I can try to hide a part of my identity by wearing modest clothes to not attract attention and create safety issues.
Identities
Iden-tities, on the other hand is a reference to my transition. I won’t explain further. I identify as a woman who likes cats. Identities are inherent to people. An identity can be used to describe people. And generally speaking, identities change slowly, most features of a person remain pretty consistent. Think of your name, address, and phone, it’s very unlikely you’ll change all of them quickly.
The usage of masking in terms of online blog and identity on the internet is to hide someone’s identity.
Cosplay
I honestly don’t think of cosplay any further than comi cons and people on the internet trying to look like different characters. We all have different desires and like certain stuff. And cosplaying allows people to enjoy characters they desire.