I have a work social media persona. My "worksona". It's who I represent as on LinkedIn and also on here.
I also have an authentic social media persona. It's another account on another server under an alias. An anonymous alias.
Why does this discrepancy exist? Because I talk about lived experiences, values, and positions on my second account that are stigmatized by society. Mental health. Neurodivergence. Gender. #FuckTheSystem.
My "worksona" is not me. It's a construct I shaped to maximize my chances by allowing me to harness conditional privilege: mainly that I'm _read_ as a white assumed cisgender, neurotypical, heterosexual, able-bodied man. But it's a mask. It means I'm keenly aware of the discrepancy in privilege that is granted based on how one is perceived.
I've been slowly incorporating more authenticity into my "worksona" but the sad truth is that there's still a wide chasm between who I really am around the people I trust and who I am in a professional context. There is literally only a single person who knows the full me and also knows me in real life. Everyone else gets a filtered version. Why? Stigma. Stigma that's assigned to layers of my identity I have no control over.
This is what privilege is about. Chances are that if your "public persona" aligns closely with your authentic self that you benefit from a whole lot of privilege (or that you're a #neuroqueer rebel; I see you and applaud you). And to the white men in my followers: this is what people talk about when they say you have privilege. The insidious truth is that it's _invisible_ to you because you probably don't know anything else. But there are many people around you who just _pretend_ to look and act like you.
I am one of the people who pretend.
