So, as it turns out, using a fake name is not allowed on LinkedIn…
The post could end there as a little note on my previous post… but I wanted to use the opportunity to talk about why I don’t want to use my real name online, haha…
As I previously mentioned, my name isn’t actually Dan. Well, it’s a syllable of my name but who cares. For what it’s worth, I’m a second-generation immigrant, meaning I was born and raised here but my parents were immigrants from another country. My name is super uncommon over here in Germany and because of that, it’s fairly easy to find out who I am once you know it.
As a result of this, I previously got doxed by someone who didn’t agree with what I’m writing about on here.
The Incident
It was some person who deemed me “woke” and tried to reveal this secret cabal of journalists who use their platform to “perpetuate cultural marxism in the gaming world” by recommending “woke” games and not recommending games that are “good”. lol.
This also coincided with a certain developer who sent me this huge text wall as an email, trying to convince me that I shouldn’t be queer. I’m not sure if either has anything to do with the other… but coincidences, eh?
My highlight from that email, btw, was the following passage: “A woman does not feel sexual pleasure whenever a man approaches her from her back passage, so what about two men!!!”
Again, I’m not sure if this dev and the other person have anything to do with each other. It was just something that happened four years ago.
Back then I also did stream with a camera, so the other person used my real name, some information from blog posts and my face (from my stream) to essentially figure out a lot of stuff about me, and then proceeded to share that on their blog, inciting people to harass me and people close to me. Luckily, WordPress took down their website since that’s against their ToS.
Either way, I got to deal with that situation but it was still fairly scary. I don’t talk about it all too often. Shit happens.
Using my name and face on LinkedIn…
…sounds like a bad idea. I was debating whether I should do it. There are a fair few people online who know what I look like and what my real name is. Heck, I’ve shared my name with a bunch of devs as well, so it’s not that much of an issue to me… but putting myself out there with no mask or anything is still pretty scary.
I figured using whatever alias I’ve got online would be fine but as it turns out, that’s not the case. Oh well.
I mean it’s not like I needed LinkedIn all that much. People can still find me on Bluesky and other platforms, right? And my email address has worked all these years, so why wouldn’t it work for the next few?
That said, I do think that that platform might be super useful for a lot of industry folks, particularly ones looking for work. I just don’t think I should need it.
LinkedIn also doesn’t seem to be made for journos, necessarily. When selecting what industry you work in, for instance, there’s communication or entertainment or whatever but no such thing as independent journalism or reviews and curation. None of the labels seemed to accurately describe what I was doing, is what I’m trying to say here.
Hence, it’s not a big loss, just a bit of an unfortunate thing, given that I don’t know whether my account is gone now or whatever.
The Quest for Professionalism
The whole reason I caved in the first place was that I wanted to focus more on highlighting indie games, especially seeing some growth on this platform and hearing from readers of mine that they loved games I recommended or talked about. That’s wicked!
At Gamescom this year, though, I learned that it was unusual for me to take notes or write my contact info on a piece of paper or that I don’t have a business card holder or my own business cards. Folks would tell me that it’s old-school or unusual, really, to not have a LinkedIn or to work analogue.
I did my interviews with my phone’s voice recorder while taking notes on my notebook. They wouldn’t make notebooks anymore if there weren’t people who needed a book for notes, though, right?
What I’m getting at is that I’ll definitely try and be “more professional” in my endeavours on here, meaning I’ll try and actually write more about indie games rather than those huge 2-4k word posts that hardly anyone reads. Give people what they want, essentially.
Someone said that posts about politics or my opinions should be on a separate site altogether… and I did think about that, actually, for quite some time… but I also know that splitting any channel into multiple projects will result in any passion for those projects dying down. I did create a separate YouTube channel just for me talking about things because it’s not what people sign up for on my main channel, after all, but then I never ended up actually uploading anything onto that channel, haha
I also definitely will get a card holder and my own business cards for whatever convention I go to next. That’s for sure something I’ll need, after all. Just no LinkedIn. Might as well have a QR-Code on there with a Link-Tree page and all my socials. I think that’d be more efficient.
Also, LinkedIn is kinda confusing anyway
This right here is the “nice guy” way of doing things. Shoot your shot, get rejected, proceed to attack whatever you desired. “You were ugly anyway”, lol.
LinkedIn is a bit odd with its separation of “connect” and “follow” features. Some folks you can message, others you cannot, but it doesn’t really explain it to you all that much. For some companies, you can see who works there. For others, it doesn’t show it at all. I’m not sure if that’s a paywall/subscription thing but it felt a bit off.
Similarly, my feed would only load four posts for me rather than doing infinite scroll… but I followed way more people who each had posts on their personal pages. Make that make sense?
And then the feed is also split into suggested content, your actual feed, and the “network” – aka folks you “connected” with. This felt a bit unintuitive to me.
The suggested content was ridden with AI-generated art, btw, which felt unprofessional. People celebrated India’s independence a while ago… but would use AI-generated cartoons for it that almost looked like caricatures of what Indian people looked like. Similarly, some cartoons that were meant as a visible aid of sorts didn’t make any sense at all and added to the confusion due to objects floating or people in the picture standing in odd spots.
AI is weird. Fuck that shit.
That’s all. Have a nice day. Btw, I’m super active on BlueSky if you wanna always catch my posts or read about cool beers I’ve tried. :)
This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.
If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.
Indiecator 
that is so strange! i once made one with this random name and it let me stay (i later deleted it bc i wasn’t using it). i think that if something is working for you, you don’t have to change it. writing notes actually helps people retain the information better anyway! but i do understand ppl finding getting your info on a paper less convenient, tho it feels kind of snobby to be like *you NEED [linkedin/business cards]*
i hate a lot of “professional” stuff, but if you don’t follow the industry, i can see how it can close some doors. i’ve collected A LOT of artists business cards but i never actually did anything with them, haha
i think there are some nice aspects on linkedin. but like you said, a lot of the info i kind of just infer… like if you follow someone (i believe) that just means you’ll get the posts they share vs. if you connect w them then you can send each other messages (i think). i usually just hit connect instead of follow. also, you can only see certain connects, so the more ppl you make connections with the more ppl you can engage with (there’s like 1st, 2nd, and 3rd connections i think with 3rd level being you have nothing in common). but don’t quote me, i’m hardly on there xD
oh, but if you ever make cards, may i suggest to also just write your info vs just relying on a qr code LOL (i hate when ppl do that, but maybe the ppl you work w don’t)
as someone w multiple blogs…don’t do it xD i think you should just share things as you have been, if ppl are complaining about your political views…well, i’m sure you know what that means
i’m not a linktree user (tho i think i have one), but i’d def rec carrd. it does have some limitations, but you could make a nice portfolio on there, a lot of events in fandom spaces use it and they can look SUPER professional
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Yeah, theoretically I can get it back but I don’t want to give LinkedIn my ID, especially since my ID doesn’t say “Dan Dicere” on there, lmao.
I’m not sure if it’s necessarily snobby but like… a paper is lost easier compared to business cards… I lowkey like the analogue aesthetic, though, haha
The connection system sounds over-engineered, ngl.
Oh, yeah, if I ever design my own business cards, I’ll definitely have my base info (pronouns/name/email/socials) and then also add a QR code to a link-tree or carrd link.
And yeah, not a fan of multiple blogs. I’ll actually write a post on my solution for this “issue” but “meh”, we’ll see.
I’ll actually be creating a new carrd page soon for my art comms, so looking forward to that! They can definitely look really professional. For what it’s worth, carrd is great when you need a bit of space to write about stuff and whatnot… Linktree is great when you really need a simple “here are my socials, uwu)” thing :D Different uses and stuff haha
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LinkedIn has never really done anything useful for me. I was ‘encouraged’ (forced) to create a profile there by my employer long, long ago. I will likely delete that profile one day and not feel like I’ve missed a thing. Keeping yourself safe online is a good reason to skip that place.
As for ‘professionalism’: well, that’s sometimes a real thing. People get an impression of how someone is during the first minute or so and it is hard to shake that first impression. So how you dress, what you look like, the way you speak, the tools you use all ‘matter’ if you are trying to grow your business.
Having said that: having a personality that differentiates you seems, in my opinion, to be more important than complying with normal expectations. Build a brand that is your own: maybe you are the only writer using pen and paper, and so you build that into your introduction so people remember it. That feels like it should be a good thing to do.
As for splitting up your blog to avoid ‘non-topical’ posts… that’s a harder one to judge. It is true that having consistent, easily ‘distinguishable’ content is helpful to building an audience. So maybe it makes sense to have separate blogs for separate topics.
But cleansing your writing of the very things that make it yours seems unwise. Maybe ‘leaning in’ to what makes you different is better: “I’m this kind of person and so that colours my thoughts and opinions. There are plenty of other blogs out there if you don’t like it.” You’ll likely get negative feedback, but delete that crap and move on: you aren’t writing for those folks anyway.
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