Academic literature on the topic 'La Hire, Jean de (1878-1956) – Biographie'

Jean de La Hire, auteur français célèbre pendant la première moitié du xxe siècle pour ses romans populaires, est devenu éditeur en prenant, de manière surprenante, la tête des Éditions Ferenczi, qu’il a aidé à aryaniser. Nous examinons ici les raisons qui l’ont poussé à renier son engagement auprès des républicains socialistes pour devenir le chantre du nazisme. Nous remarquerons que cet engagement brutal aux côtés de la Collaboration a plus été le fait d’un froid opportunisme que d’une conviction sincère — ce qui eut des conséquences sur sa gestion de la maison d’édition. S’il publie bien certains ouvrages de propagande, et s’il en rédige lui-même certains, il n’en reste pas moins que sa gestion de Ferenczi reste minimale, et qu’il ne touche en fait qu’à la marge de son catalogue. La Hire incarne ainsi un visage différent de l’engagement, moins sincère, bien moins humaniste, et bien plus confortable.

Digital Articulations of the Relational Self Identity continues to be one of the enduring topics in digital media research. This interdisciplinary take on the digital self extends the discussion in my dissertation (Harju) of contemporary articulations of the relational self in the digital context by focusing on potentiality of the evolving self. I adopt a relational approach to being (Gergen Relational) where the self is seen as always already a product of relations, borne out of them as well as dependent on them (Gergen Realities). The self as fluid and processual is reflective of our liquid times (Bauman), of globalisation and digitalisation where we are surrounded by global flows of images, taste and trends (Appadurai).The view of the self as a process underlies future-oriented action, emphasing the becoming of the self. The process of becoming implies the potential of the self that can be narrated into existence. The relational view of the self, perhaps indirectly, also posits the self as a temporal interface between the present and the future, as a site where change unfolds. It is therefore important to critically reflect on the kinds of potentialities we can discover and engage with and the kinds of futures (Berardi) we can construct.Extending Gergen’s conceptualisation of the kinds of relations to include non-human actors (e.g. media technologies) as well socio-cultural and economic forces allows me to explore the conflicting forces shaping the self, for example, the influence the market exerts on self-construction together with the media logics that guide digital self-production practices. Because of the market’s dominant position in today’s imagination, I seek to explore the relational processes of inclusion and exclusion that position individuals relative to as well as in terms of the market as more or less included or excluded subjects (Harju).The digital environment is a unique setting for identity projects as it provides spatial and temporal flexibility, the possibility for curation, consideration and reconstruction. At the same time, it lacks a certain historicity; as Smith and Watson note, the self constructed online lacks narrative beginning and end that in “analog life writing [are] distinguishable by birth or death” (90). While it is tempting therefore to assume that self-construction online is free from all constraints, this is not necessarily so as the self is nevertheless produced within the wider socio-cultural context in which it also needs to “make sense,” these conditions persisting across these modes of being. Self as a relational process inevitably connects what for analytical purposes may be called online and offline social spaces as there is a processual linkage, a relational flow, that connects any online entity to a form outside the digital realm.Media institutions and the process of mediation (Rak Boom!) shape the autobiographical practices (Poletti), and the notion of automedia was introduced as a way to incorporate images, text and technologies as constitutive in autobiographic accounts (Smith and Watson) and help see online life as life instead of mere representation (Rak "Life"). The automedial approach rejects essentialist accounts of the self, assuming rather that the self is called into being and constructed in and by the materiality of the medium, in the process of mediation. This furthermore entails a move beyond the literary in terms of autobiographies toward consideration of the enabling and restricting roles of media technologies in the kinds of selves that can be constructed (Maguire 74).Viewing the self as always already relationally emergent (Gergen Relational) and combining this view with the framework of automedial construction of the self allows us to bring into the examination of the digital self the socio-cultural and economic forces and the diverse discourses meeting at the site of the self. Importantly, the relational approach prioritises relations and therefore the self is constituted in a relational flow in a process of becoming, placing importance on the kinds of relational configurations where the becoming of the self takes place.This paper explores how the digital self is forged under the joint pressures of consumerist logic and media logics in the contemporary society where “being a consumer” is the predominant subjectivity (Firat; Bauman). I draw on sociology of consumption to examine the relational tensions shaping identity construction of marginalised individuals. To empirically illustrate the discussion I draw on a previous study (Harju and Huovinen) on plus-sized fashion blogging and examine fatshion blogging as a form of automedia (see also Rak "Digital" on blogs).Plus-Sized Fashion Bloggers and Market-Mediated IdentityPlus-sized fashion bloggers, “fatshionistas,” actively seek social and cultural inclusion by way of fashion. As a collective activity, plus-sized fashion blogging is more than diary writing (see also Rak Digital) but also more than fashion blogging: the blogs constitute “networked, collective and active consumer resistance,” illuminating “marginalised consumers’ identity work at the intersection of commercial culture and the counter-representations of traditional femininity” (Harju and Huovinen 1603). Blogging resistant or subversive identities into being is thus also a form of activism and political action (Connell). As a form of automedia and autobiographical production, fatshion blogging has as its agenda the construction of alternative subjectivities and carving out a legitimate social space in the “fatosphere,” “a loosely interconnected network of online resources aimed at creating a safe space where individuals can counter fat prejudice, resist misconceptions of fat, engage in communal experiences and promote positive understandings of fat” (Gurrieri and Cherrier 279). Fashion blogs are rich in self-images portraying “fat fashion”: thus, not only fashion as a physical medium and the images representative of such materiality, but also the body acts as a medium.Plus-sized fashion bloggers feel marginalised as women due to body size but they also face rejection in and by the market. Normalised discourses around fashion and the female body as one that is fashioned render fashion blogging an avenue to normativity (Berlant): the symbolic power of taste (Bourdieu) embedded in fashion is harnessed to construct the desired self and to mobilise discourses of acceptable subjectivity. However, it is these very discourses that also construct the “state of being fat” as deviant and stigmatise the larger body as something falling outside the definition of good taste (LeBesco).The description on the Fatshionista! Livejournal page summarizes the agenda that despite the focus on fashion carries political undertones:Welcome, fatshionistas! We are a diverse fat-positive, anti-racist, disabled-friendly, trans-inclusive, queer-flavored, non-gender-specific community, open to everyone. Here we will discuss the ins and outs of fat fashions, seriously and stupidly--but above all--standing tall, and with panache. We fatshionistas are self-accepting despite The Man's Saipan-made boot at our chubby, elegant throats. We are silly, and serious, and want shit to fit.In a previous study (Harju and Huovinen) on the conflicted identity construction of plus-sized fashion bloggers (see also Gurrieri and Cherrier; Limatius) we found the complex performative tactics used in constructing the plus-sized blogger identity both resisted the market as well as embraced it: the bloggers seek similarity via appeals to normativity (see also Coleman and Figueroa) yet underline difference by rejecting the demands of normative ideals.The bloggers’ similarity seeking tactics (Harju and Huovinen) emphasise shared commonalities with the feminine ideals (ultra-femininity, posing and girliness) and on the face of it contribute to reproducing not only the gendered self but also the market-compromised self that endorses a very specific type of femininity. The plus-sized blogger identity, although inherently subversive as it seeks to challenge and expand the repertoire and imagery available to women, nevertheless seeks inclusion by way of the market, the very same that rejected them as “consumers”. This relational tension is negotiated on the blogs, and resistance emerges through articulating difference.Thus, the bloggers’ diversity asserting tactics (Harju and Huovinen) add to the complexity of the identity project and constitute explicit resistance, giving rise to resistant consumer identity. Bodily differences are highlighted (e.g. the bigger body is embraced, skin and body revealed rather than concealed) as the bloggers take control of how they are represented, using media to challenge the market that defines acceptable femininity in ways that ostracises fat women. The contradictory processes at the site of the self give rise to relational tension (Gergen Relational) and blogging offers a site for collective negotiation. For the plus-sized bloggers, to be included means no longer occupying the margins: self-images displaying the fat body contribute to corporeal empowerment (Harju and Huovinen) where flaunting the fat body helps construct the identity of a “fatshionista” blogger liberated from shame and stigma attached to the bigger body:I decided to start this blog after being a regular poster on the Fatshionista LiveJournal community. Finding that community changed my whole outlook on life, I was fat (still am) & unhappy with myself (not so much now). I was amazed to find a place where fat people celebrated their bodies, instead of being ashamed. (Harju and Huovinen 1614).The fatshion blog as a form of automedia is driven by the desire for change in the social circumstances where self-construction can take place, toward the future potential of the self, by diversifying acceptable subject positions and constructing novel identification points for fat women. The means are limited, however, and despite the explicit agenda of promoting body positivity, the collective aspirations are rooted in consumption and realised in the realm of fashion and the market.The question, therefore, is whether resistance outside the market is possible when so much of our social existence is bound up with the market and consumerist logic, or whether the desire for inclusion, manifest in aspirational normativity (Berlant) with the promise of social acceptance linked to normative way of life, necessitates market participation and the adoption of consumer subjectivity? Consumer subjectivity offers normative intelligibility in the various expressions of identity, providing tools for the becoming of an included subject. However, it raises the question of whether resistant identity can occur outside the market and outside the logic of consumption when it seeks social inclusion.Market-compromised identity is a double-edged sword; while participation via the market may help construct a self that is intelligible, market participation also disciplines the subject to take part in a certain way, of becoming a certain type of consuming subject, all the time harnessing the self for the benefit of the market. With no beginning or an end, the digital self is in constant processual flux, responding to conflicting relational input. The market adds to this complexity as “the neoliberal subject is compelled to participate in society as both an enthusiastic consumer and as a self-controlled subject” (Guthman 193).Social Imaginaries as Horizons of Constrained Possibility Identity possibilities are inscribed in the popular imagination, and the concept of social imaginary (Castoriadis; Taylor) provides a useful lens through which to examine articulations of the digital self. Social imaginaries are not unitary constructions and different imaginaries are evoked in different contexts. Likewise, although often shared, they are nevertheless unique to the individual, presenting as a terrain of conceivable action befitting of the individual engaged in the act of imagining.In our socially saturated times relational input is greater than ever (Gergen Relational). Imagining now draws on a wider range of identity possibilities, the ways of imagining the self being reflective of the values of any given time. Both consumption and media infiltrate the social imagination which today is not only compromised by market logic but has become constitutive of a terrain where the parameters for inclusion, change and resistance are limited. Practices of performing desirable femininity normalise a certain way of being and strike a constitutive boundary between what is desirable and what is not. The plus-sized fashion blogging makes visible the lack of diversity in the popular imagination (Harju and Huovinen) while fatshion blogging also reveals what possibilities there are for inclusion (i.e. via consumption and by mobilising normative femininity) and where the boundaries of identity work lie (see also Connell).The fat body is subjected to discipline (Giovanelli and Ostertag; LeBesco) and “becoming fat” is regularly viewed as a lack of control. Not limited to fat subjects, the prevalent discourses of the self emphasise control and responsibility for the self (rather than community), often masquerading as self-approval. The same discourses, however, highlight work on the self (McRobbie) and cultivating the self by various means of self-management or self-tracking (Rettberg). Such self-disciplining carries the implication of the self as somewhat lacking (Skeggs Imagining, Exchange), of being in some way unintelligible (Butler).In plus-sized blogging, the fat body needs to be subjected to fashioning to become intelligible within the dominant discourses in the public sphere. The fatshionista community is a politically oriented movement that rejects the normative demands governing the body, yet regimes of ‘self-improvement’ are evident on the individual blogs displaying the fashioned body, which is befitting of the normative understandings of the female subject as sexualised, as something to be consumed (see also Maguire). Contrary to the discourses of fat female subjects where the dimension of sexuality is largely absent, this is also linked to the problematics related to the visibility of female subjects. The negotiation of relational tension is manifest as negotiation of competing discourses where bloggers adopt the hegemonic visual discourses to subvert the stigmatising discourses that construct the fat female subject as lacking. Utilising media logics (e.g. micro-celebrity) to gain visibility as fat subjects is an important aspect of the fatshionistas’ automedial self-construction.I argue that social imaginaries that feed into identity construction and offer pathways to normalcy cannot be seen simply and only as enabling, but instead they construct horizons of constrained possibility (Harju), thereby imposing limitations to the kind of acceptable identity positions marginalised individuals can seek. Digital productions form chains of symbolic entities and acquire their meaning by being interconnected as well as by being connected to popular social imaginaries. Thus, the narrative construction of the self in the digital production, and the recognition of the self in the becoming, is the very utility of the digital object. This is because through the digital artefact the individual becomes relationally linked to chains of significations (Harju). Through such linkages and subverted discourses, the disenfranchised may become enfranchised.Toward Horizons of Potentiality and PossibilityThe relational self is a process under continual change and thus always becoming. This approach opens up new avenues for exploring the complexities of the digital self that is never ‘just’ a reproduction. Automedia entails both the media about the maker (the subject) and the process of mediating the self (Rak "Life" 161) The relational approach helps overcome the binary distinction in modes of being (online versus offline), instead bringing into focus the relational flow between various articulations of the self in different relational scenarios. Then perhaps the question is not “what kinds of selves become or are borne digital” (Rak Life 177), but what kinds of selves are possible in the first place under the current conditions that include the digital as one mode of being, mediating the becoming, with the digital as one relational space of articulation of the self among many.Where in On Being Online I discussed the constraining effects of market ideology embedded in social imaginaries on how the self can be articulated, Berardi in his book Futurability offers a more optimistic take, noting how the different paths we take result in different possibilities becoming realised, resulting in different social realities in the future. Future is not a linear development from the present; rather, the present harbours the potential for multiple futures. Berardi notes how the “[f]uture is not prescribed but inscribed, so it must be selected and extracted through interpretation” (236). Despite the dominant code - which in our times is consumption (Baudrillard) - hindering the process of interpretation, there is hope in Berardi’s notion of inscribed possibilities for resistance and change, for different ways of being and becoming.This is the space the plus-sized fashion bloggers occupy as they grasp the potentialities in the present and construct new ways of being that unfold as different social realities in the future. In blogging, platform affordances together with other media technologies are intertwined with future-oriented life narration in the construction of the fatshionista identity which involves retrospective interpretation of life experiences as a fat woman as well as self-liberation in the form of conscious rejection of the dominant discourses around fat female subjects.The digital self is able to negotiate such diverse, even conflicting forces in the active shaping of the social reality of its existence. Blogging as automedia can constitute an act of carving out alternative futures not limited to the digital realm. Perhaps when freed from aspirational normativity (Berlant) we are able to recover hope in the inscribed possibilities that might also hide the potential for a transition from a subjectivity enslaved to the market logic (see Firat Violence) to a self actively engaged in changing the social circumstances and the conditions in which subjectivity is construed (see Firat and Dholakia). In the becoming, the digital self occupies a place between the present and the future, enmeshed in various discourses of aspiration, mediated by material practices of consumption and articulated within the limits of current media practices (Harju). A self in the making, it is variably responsive to the multitude of relational forces continually flowing at the site of it.Although the plus-sized bloggers’ identity work can be seen as an attempt to transform or discipline the self into something more intelligible that better fits the existing narratives of the self, they are also adding new narratives to the repertoire. If we adopt the view of self-conception as discourse about the self, that is, “the performance of languages available in the public sphere” (Gergen, Realities 185) whereby the self is made culturally intelligible by way of narration within ongoing relationships, we can see how the existing cultural discourses of the self are not only inclusive, but also alienating and othering. There is a need for identity politics that encourage the production of alternative discourses of the self for more inclusive practices of imagining. 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IntroductionAlt, or alternative, accounts are secondary profiles people use in addition to a main account on a social media platform. They are a kind of automediation, a way of representing the self, that deliberately displays a different identity facet, and addresses a different audience, to what someone considers to be their main account. The term “alt” seems to have originated from videogame culture and been incorporated into understandings of social media accounts. A wiki page about alternate accounts on virtual world Second Life calls an alt “an account used by a resident for something other than their usual activity or to do things in privacy” (n.p.).Studying alts gives an insight into practices of managing and contextualising identities on networked platforms that are visible, persistent, editable, associable (Treem and Leonardi), spreadable, searchable (boyd), shareable (Papacharissi "Without"), and personalised (Schmidt). When these features of social media are understood as limitations that lead to context collapse (Marwick and boyd 122; Wesch 23), performative incoherence (Papacharissi Affective 99), and the risk of overexposure, people respond by developing alternative ways to use platforms.Plenty of scholarship on social media identities claims the self is fragmented, multifaceted, and contextual (Marwick 355; Schmidt 369). But the scholarship on multiple account use on single platforms is still emerging. Joanne Orlando writes for The Conversation that teens increasingly have more than one account on Instagram: “finstas” are “fake” or secondary accounts used to post especially candid photos to a smaller audience, thus they are deployed strategically to avoid the social pressure of looking polished and attractive. These accounts are referred to as “fake” because they are often pseudonymous, but the practice of compartmentalising audiences makes the promise that the photos posted are more authentic, spontaneous, and intimate. Kylie Cardell, Kate Douglas, and Emma Maguire (162) argue that while secondary accounts promise a less constructed version of life, speaking back to the dominant genre of aesthetically pleasing Instagram photos, all social media posts are constructed within the context of platform norms and imagined audiences (Litt & Hargittai 1). Still, secondary accounts are important for revealing these norms (Cardell, Douglas & Maguire 163). The secondary account is particularly prevalent on Twitter, a platform that often brings together multiple audiences into a public profile. In 2015, author Emily Reynolds claimed that Twitter alts were “an appealingly safe space compared to main Twitter where abuse, arguments and insincerity are rife” (n.p.).This paper draws on a survey of Twitter users with alts to argue that the strategic use of pseudonyms, profile photos without faces, locked accounts, and smaller audiences are ways to overcome some of the built-in limitations of social media automediality.Identity Is Multiple Chris Poole, founder of anonymous bulletin board 4chan, believes identity is a fluid concept, and designed his platform as a space in which people could connect over interests, not profiles. Positioning 4chan against real-name platforms, he argues:Your identity is prismatic […] we’re all multifaceted people. Google and Facebook would have you believe that you’re a mirror, that there is one reflection that you have, there is one idea of self. But in fact we’re more like diamonds. You can look at people from any angle and see something totally different, but they’re still the same. (n.p.)Claiming that identities are contextual performances stems from longstanding sociological and philosophical work on identity from theorists like Erving Goffman, who in the 1950s proposed a dramaturgical framework of the self to consider interactions as fundamentally social and performative rather than reflecting one core, essential inner self.Social media profiles allow people to use the language of the platform to represent themselves (Marwick 362), meaning identity performances are framed by platform architecture and features, formal and informal rules, and social ties (Schmidt 369). Social media profiles shape how people can engage in how they represent themselves, argue Shelly Farnham and Elizabeth Churchill, who claim that the assumption that a single, unified online identity is sufficient is a problematic trend in platform design. They argue that when facets of their lives are incompatible, people segment those lives into separate areas in order to maintain social norms and boundaries.Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson consider identity multiplicities to be crucial to automediality, which is built on an aesthetic of bricolage and pastiche rather than understanding subjectivity to be the essence of the self. In her work on automediality and online girlhood, Maguire ("Home"; "Self-Branding" 74) argues that an automedial approach attends to how mediation shapes the way selves can be represented online, claiming that the self is brought into being through these mediation practices.This article understands alt accounts as a type of social media practice that Nick Couldry (52) identifies as presencing: sustaining a public presence with media. I investigate presencing through studying alts as a way to manage separate publics, and the tension between public and private, on Twitter by surveying users who have a main and an alt account. Although research into multiple account use is nascent, Alice Marwick lists maintaining multiple accounts as a tactic to mitigate context collapse, alongside other strategies such as using nicknames, only sharing posts when they are appropriate for multiple audiences, and keeping more personal interactions to private messenger and text message.Ben Light argues that while connection is privileged on social media, disconnective practices like editing out, deleting, unfriending, untagging, rejecting follower requests, and in this case, creating alt accounts, are crucial. Disconnecting from some aspects of the social media experience allows people to stay connected on a particular platform, by negotiating the dynamics that do not appeal to them. While the disconnective practice of presencing through an alt has not been studied in detail, research I discuss in the next section focuses on multi-account use to argue that people who have more than one account on a single platform are aware of their audiences, and want control over which people see which posts.Multi-Platform and Multi-Account UseA conference presentation by Frederic Stutzman and Woodrow Hartzog calls maintaining multiple profiles on a single platform a strategy for boundary regulation, through which access is selectively granted to specific people. Stutzman and Hartzog interviewed 20 people with multiple profiles to determine four main motives for this kind of boundary regulation: privacy, identity management, utility (using one profile for a distinct purpose, like managing a restaurant page), and propriety (conforming to social norms around appropriate disclosure).Writing about multiple profiles on Reddit, Alex Leavitt argues that temporary or “throwaway” accounts give people the chance to disclose sensitive or off-topic information. For example, some women use throwaways when posting to a bra sizing subreddit, so men don’t exploit their main account for sexual purposes. Throwaways are a boundary management technique Leavitt considers beneficial for Redditors, and urges platform designers to consider implementing alternatives to single accounts.Jessa Lingel and Adam Golub also call for platforms to allow for multiple accounts, suggesting Facebook should let users link their profiles at a metadata level and be able to switch between them. They argue that this would be especially beneficial for those who take on specific personas, such as drag queens. In their study of drag queens with more than one Facebook profile, Lingel and Golub suggest that drag queens need to maintain boundaries between fans and friends, but creating a separate business page for their identity as a performer was inadequate for the kind of nuanced personal communication they engaged in with their fans. Drag queens considered this kind of communication relationship maintenance, not self-branding. This demonstrates that drag queens on Facebook are attentive to their audience, which is a common feature of users posting to social media: they have an idea, no matter how accurate, of who they are posting to.Eden Litt and Eszter Hargittai (1) call this perception the imagined audience, which serves as a guide for how to present the self and what to post about when an audience is unknown or not physically present. People in their study would either claim they were posting to no-one in particular, or that they had an audience in mind, whether this was personal ties (close friends, family, specific individuals like a best friend), communal ties (people interested in cleaning tips, local art community, people in Portland), professional ties (colleagues, clients, my radio show audience), and phantasmal ties (people with whom someone has an imaginary relationship, like famous people, brands, animals, and the dead).Based on these studies of boundary regulation, throwaway accounts, separate Facebook pages for fans and friends, and imagined audiences on social media, I designed a short survey that would prompt respondents to reflect on their own practices of negotiating platform limitations through their alt account.Asking Twitter about AltsTo research alts, I asked my own Twitter followers to tell me about theirs. I’ve been tweeting from @emvdn since 2010, and I have roughly 5,500 followers, mostly Melbourne academics, writers, and professionals. This method of asking my own Twitter followers questions builds on a study by Alice Marwick and danah boyd, in which they investigated context collapse on social media by tweeting questions like “who do you tweet to?” and monitoring the replies.I sent out a tweet with a link to the survey on 31 January 2018, and left it open for responses until I submitted this draft article on 18 February 2018:I’m writing about alt (alternative/secondary) accounts on social media. If you have an alt account, on Twitter or elsewhere, could you tell me about it, in survey form? (van der Nagel)The tweet was retweeted 161 times, spreading the survey to other accounts and contexts, and I received a total of 326 responses to the survey. For a full list of survey questions, see Appendix. I asked people to choose one alt (if they had more than one), and answer questions about it, including what prompted them to start the account, how they named it, who the audience is for their main and their alt, and how similar they perceived their main and alt to be. I also asked whether they would like to remain anonymous or be quoted under a pseudonym, which I have followed in this article.Of course, by posting the Twitter survey to my own followers, I am necessarily asking a specific group of people whose alt practices might not be indicative of broader trends. Just like any research done on Twitter, this research attracted a particular group: the results of this survey give a snapshot of the followers of a 29 year old female Melbourne academic, and the wider networks it was retweeted into.Although I asked anyone with more than one account on the same platform to fill out the survey, I’ll be focusing on pseudonymous alts here. Not everyone is pseudonymous on their alt: 61 per cent of respondents said they use a pseudonym, and half (51 per cent) said theirs was locked, or unavailable to the public. Some people have an alt in order to distinguish themselves from their professional account, some are connecting with those who share a specific interest, and others deliberately created an alt to harass and troll others on Twitter. But I regard pseudonymous alts as especially important to this article, as they evidence particular understandings of social media.Asking how people named their alt gave me an insight into how they framed it: as another facet of their identity: “I chose something close, but not too close to my main twitter handle,” or directed towards one particular subject they use the alt for: “I wanted a personal account which would be about all sorts, and one just for women’s sport” (Danielle Warby). Some changed the name of their account often, to further hide the account away: “I have renamed it several times, usually referencing in jokes with friends.”Many alt usernames express that the account is an alternative to a main one: people often said their alt username was their main username with a prefix or suffix like “alt,” “locked,” “NSFW” (Not Safe For Work, adult content), “priv” (short for “private”), or “2”, so if their main account was @emvdn, their alt account might be @emvdn_alt. Some used a username or nickname from another part of their life, used a pop culture reference, or wanted a completely random username, so they used a username generator or simply mashed the keyboard to get a string of random characters. Others used their real name for their alt account: “It’s my name. The point wasn’t to hide, it was to separate/segment conversiations [sic]” (knitmeapony).When asked who their audience was for their main and their alt, most people spoke of a smaller, more intimate audience of close friends or trusted accounts. On Twitter, people with locked accounts must approve followers before they can see their tweets, so it’s likely they are thinking of a specific group. One person said their alt was “locked behind a trust-wall (like a paywall, but you need to pay with a life-long friendship).” A few people said their audience for their alt was just one person: themselves. While their main account was for friends, or just “anyone who wants to follow me” (Brisbane blogger), their alt would simply be for them alone, to privately post and reflect.Asking how similar the main and alt account was led people reflecting on how they used multiple accounts to manage their multifaceted identity. “My alt account is just me unfiltered,” said one anonymous respondent, and another called their accounts “two sides of the same coin. Both me, just public and private versions.” One respondent said, “I would communicate differently in the boardroom from the bedroom. And I guess my alt is more like a private bedroom party, so it doesn’t matter if my bra comes off.”Many people signalled their awareness or experience of harassment when asked about benefits or drawbacks of alt accounts: people started theirs to avoid being harassed, bullied, piled-on, or judged. While an alt account gave people a private, safe channel in which to reach close friends and share intimate parts of their life, they also spoke about difficulties with maintaining more than one account, and potential awkwardness if someone requested to follow them that they did not want to connect with.It seemed that asking about benefits and drawbacks of alts led to articulations of labour—keeping accounts separate, and deciding on who to allow into this private space—but fears about social media more generally also surfaced. Although creating an alt meant people were consciously taking steps to compartmentalise their identity, this did not make them feel completely impervious to harassment, context collapse, and overexposure. “Some dingus will screencap and create drama,” was one potential drawback of having an alt: just because confessions and intimate or sexual photos were shared privately doesn’t mean they will stay private. People were keen to acknowledge that alts involved ongoing labour and platform negotiations.Multiple Identity Facets; Multiple AccountsWhen I released the survey, I was expecting most people to discuss their alt, locked, private account, which existed in contrast to their main, unlocked, professional one. Some people did just that, like Sarah:I worked in the media and needed a place to put my thoughts ABOUT my job/the media that I didn’t want my boss reading – not necessarily negative, just private thoughts I wanted to write somewhere.Wanting to maintain a public presence while still having an intimate space for personal self-disclosure was a common theme, which showed an awareness of imagined audiences, and a desire to disconnect from certain audiences, particularly colleagues and family members. Some didn’t necessarily want an intimate alt, but a targeted one: there were accounts for dog photos, weight loss journeys, fandoms, pregnancies, fetishes, a positive academic advice account using a Barbie doll called @barbie_phd, and one for cataloguing laundromats around London. It also seemed alts were contagious: people regularly admitted they began theirs because a friend had one. “Friends were using alts and it looked like a cool world;” “my friends seemed to be having a good time with it, and I wanted to try something they were interested in;” “wanted to be part of the ‘little twitter’ community.”Fluidities I wasn’t expecting also emerged. One respondent considered both of their accounts to be primary:it’s not clear for me which of my accounts is the “alt”. i had my non-professional one first, but i don’t consider either of them secondary, though the professional one is much more active.Along with those that changed the name of their alt often, L said they “initially kept private to only me to rant, record very private thoughts etc., have since extended it to 3 followers.” Platforms encourage continuous, active, engaged participation with ever-expanding networks of followers and friends. As José van Dijck (12) argues, platforms privilege connections, even as they stress human connectedness and downplay the automated connectivity from which they profit. Twitter’s homepage urges people to “follow your interests. Hear what people are talking about. Join the conversation. See what’s happening in the world right now,” and encourages people to keep adding more connections by featuring a recommendation panel that displays suggestions next to the main feed for “who to follow”, and links to import contacts from Gmail and other address books. In this instance, L’s three followers is an act of resistance, a disconnective practice that only links L with the very specific people they want to be an audience for their private thoughts, not to the extended networks of people L knows.ConclusionThis article has provided further evidence that on social media platforms, people don’t just have one account with their real name that faithfully expresses their one true identity. Even among those with alts, practices vary immensely, with some people using their alt as a quieter, more private space, and others creating a public identity and stream of posts catering to a niche audience.When users understand social media’s visibility, persistence, editability, association, spreadability, searchability, shareability, and personalisation as limitations, they seek ways to compartmentalise their identity facets so they can have access to the conversations, contexts, and audiences they want.There is scope for future research in this area on how alts are created, perceived, and managed, and how they relate to the broader social media landscape and its emphasis on real names, expanding networks, and increasingly sophisticated connections between people, platforms, and data. A larger study encompassing multiple platforms and accounts would reveal wider patterns of use and give more insight into this common, yet understudied, disconnective practice of selective presencing.Referencesboyd, danah. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New Haven: Yale UP, 2014.Cardell, Kylie, Kate Douglas, and Emma Maguire. “‘Stories’: Social Media and Ephemeral Narratives as Memoir.” Mediating Memory: Tracing the Limits of Memoir. Eds. Bunty Avieson, Fiona Giles, and Sue Joseph. New York: Routledge, 2018. 157–172.Couldry, Nick. Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge: Polity P, 2012.Farnham, Shelly D., and Elizabeth F. Churchill. “Faceted Identity, Faceted Lives: Social and Technical Issues with Being Yourself Online.” CSCW ’11: Proceedings of the ACM 2011 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Hangzhou, China, 19–23 March 2011. 359–68.Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 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DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199999736.001.0001.———. “Without You, I’m Nothing: Performances of the Self on Twitter.” International Journal of Communication 6 (2012): 1989–2006.Poole, Chris. “Prismatic Identity.” Chris Hates Writing 9 Oct. 2013 <http://chrishateswriting.com/post/63564095133/prismatic-identity>.Reynolds, Emily. “Alt Twitter: Where Brutal Honesty Hides behind Pseudonyms.” Gadgette 10 Aug. 2015 <https://www.gadgette.com/2015/08/10/welcome-to-alt-twitter-where-brutal-honesty-hides-behind-pseudonyms/>.Schmidt, Jan-Hinrik. “Practices of Networked Identity.” A Companion to New Media Dynamics. Eds. John Hartley, Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. 365–74.Second Life Wiki. “Alternate Account.” Second Life Wiki (2018). <http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Alternate_Account>.Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. “Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Eds. Anna Poletti and Julie Rak. 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Appendix: List of Survey QuestionsDemographic informationAll the questions in this survey are optional, so feel free to skip any if you’re not comfortable sharing.How old are you?What is your gender identity?What is your main occupation?What is your city and country of residence?Which social media platforms do you use? Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tumblr, YouTube, Tencent QQ, WeChat, KakaoTalk, Renren, other?Which social media platforms do you have an alt account on? Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, YouTube, Tencent QQ, WeChat, KakaoTalk, Renren, other?Your alt accountThis section asks you to pick one of your alt accounts - for example, your locked account on Twitter separate from your main account, a throwaway on Reddit, or a close-friends-only Facebook account - and tell me about it.Which platform is your alt account on?Is your alt locked (unavailable to the public)? Yes/NoWhat prompted you to start your alt account?Do you use a pseudonym on your alt? Yes/NoDo you use a photo of yourself as the profile image? Yes/NoDo you share photos of yourself on your alt? Yes/NoCan you tell me about how you named your alt?Which account do you use more often? My main/my alt/I use them about the sameWhich has a bigger audience? My main/my alt/They’re about the sameWho is the audience for your main account? Who is the audience for your alt account? What topics would you post about on your alt that you’d never post about on your main? How similar do you think your main and alt accounts are? What are the benefits of having an alt?What are the drawbacks of having an alt? Thank you!If I quote you in my research project, what name/pseudonym would you like me to use? My name/pseudonym is___________ OR I would like to remain anonymous and be assigned a participant number

Plus connu sous le pseudonyme de Jean de La Hire, l’écrivain, éditeur et homme politique français Adolphe d’Espie (1878-1956) a aujourd’hui disparu de la plupart des mémoires. Ses œuvres ont pourtant marqué nombre de lecteurs de son époque, comme le jeune Jean Paul-Sartre qui se délectait de ses romans. Son parcours ne peut par ailleurs manquer d’interpeller. Romancier résolument élitiste, le jeune d’Espie fréquente Pierre Louÿs, José-Maria de Heredia, Colette et Willy, et se rêve en nouveau Balzac. Pourtant, c’est dans le roman populaire qu’il se rendra célèbre, et qu’il publiera la majorité de sa très vaste production. Il en couvrira tous les genres : roman sentimental, policier, d’aventures, de cape et d’épée, et de science-fiction. Son itinéraire politique étonne également. Longtemps engagé auprès des républicains-socialistes, il devient maire de Banyuls-sur-Mer sous cette étiquette, et rédacteur en chef d’une revue politique parrainée par Léon Bourgeois et Ferdinand Buisson. D’Espie bascule cependant dès 1940 du côté de la collaboration. Il prend alors la tête des Éditions Ferenczi qu’il aryanise et met au service de la propagande nazie, propagande à laquelle il contribue aussi de sa plume. Ambitieux et opportuniste, d’Espie a choisi en politique comme dans les lettres, les chemins qui menaient le plus vite au succès, au mépris d’idéaux vite oubliés, et d’une postérité qui ne pourra lui pardonner ses errements
Mostly known under the pseudonym Jean de La Hire, the French writer, editor and politician Adolphe d’Espie (1878-1956) might not be on many people’s minds nowadays. Yet, his works were very popular in his time, delighting a vast audience including young Jean-Paul Sartre, who names him as one of his favorite authors. And his baffling itinerary raises many questions. Beginning his literary career as a very elitist novelist, young d’Espie befriends figures such as Pierre Louÿs, José-Maria de Heredia, Colette and Willy, and dreams to become the new Balzac. He still ended up owing his fame to popular literature. His prolific production in the field covers many genre: romance novel, crime novel, adventure novels, and even science fiction. The paths he followed in politics puzzle as well. A long standing supporter of the “radical” movement, and elected mayor under this label, d’Espie became editor in chief of a political review sponsored by future Nobel Peace Prize-winning Léon Bourgeois and Ferdinand Buisson. In 1940, d’Espie however sides with the German occupying forces. He takes the helm of a publishing house confiscated to Jewish owners, and writes and publishes propaganda in favor of the Nazis. Ambition and opportunism seem in both cases the reason accounting for these flip-flops – d’Espie always going for the quickest way to success, disregarding both his ideals and a posterity that will not be able to forgive his mistakes

Plus connu sous le pseudonyme de Jean de La Hire, l’écrivain, éditeur et homme politique français Adolphe d’Espie (1878-1956) a aujourd’hui disparu de la plupart des mémoires. Ses œuvres ont pourtant marqué nombre de lecteurs de son époque, comme le jeune Jean Paul-Sartre qui se délectait de ses romans. Son parcours ne peut par ailleurs manquer d’interpeller. Romancier résolument élitiste, le jeune d’Espie fréquente Pierre Louÿs, José-Maria de Heredia, Colette et Willy, et se rêve en nouveau Balzac. Pourtant, c’est dans le roman populaire qu’il se rendra célèbre, et qu’il publiera la majorité de sa très vaste production. Il en couvrira tous les genres : roman sentimental, policier, d’aventures, de cape et d’épée, et de science-fiction. Son itinéraire politique étonne également. Longtemps engagé auprès des républicains-socialistes, il devient maire de Banyuls-sur-Mer sous cette étiquette, et rédacteur en chef d’une revue politique parrainée par Léon Bourgeois et Ferdinand Buisson. D’Espie bascule cependant dès 1940 du côté de la collaboration. Il prend alors la tête des Éditions Ferenczi qu’il aryanise et met au service de la propagande nazie, propagande à laquelle il contribue aussi de sa plume. Ambitieux et opportuniste, d’Espie a choisi en politique comme dans les lettres, les chemins qui menaient le plus vite au succès, au mépris d’idéaux vite oubliés, et d’une postérité qui ne pourra lui pardonner ses errements
Mostly known under the pseudonym Jean de La Hire, the French writer, editor and politician Adolphe d’Espie (1878-1956) might not be on many people’s minds nowadays. Yet, his works were very popular in his time, delighting a vast audience including young Jean-Paul Sartre, who names him as one of his favorite authors. And his baffling itinerary raises many questions. Beginning his literary career as a very elitist novelist, young d’Espie befriends figures such as Pierre Louÿs, José-Maria de Heredia, Colette and Willy, and dreams to become the new Balzac. He still ended up owing his fame to popular literature. His prolific production in the field covers many genre: romance novel, crime novel, adventure novels, and even science fiction. The paths he followed in politics puzzle as well. A long standing supporter of the “radical” movement, and elected mayor under this label, d’Espie became editor in chief of a political review sponsored by future Nobel Peace Prize-winning Léon Bourgeois and Ferdinand Buisson. In 1940, d’Espie however sides with the German occupying forces. He takes the helm of a publishing house confiscated to Jewish owners, and writes and publishes propaganda in favor of the Nazis. Ambition and opportunism seem in both cases the reason accounting for these flip-flops – d’Espie always going for the quickest way to success, disregarding both his ideals and a posterity that will not be able to forgive his mistakes