Line #19 Main/AnonymousAuthor


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4	[[quoteright:284:[[Literature/TheBrideStrippedBare https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_bride_stripped_bare_anonymous.jpg]]]]
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6	An author who doesn't want their authorship known will use a PenName. An author who wants everyone to know they don't want their authorship known will use Anonymous, or a pen name that very obviously presents itself as a pen name.
7
8	This is done to convey the impression -- which may even be true -- that the author would be in trouble were his or her identity known. So it's often done with controversial works, or works that wish to present themselves as such, and with exposes.
9
10	Compare PenName and AlanSmithee. Contrast SameFaceDifferentName, where the pseudonym may not even be particularly opaque and serves largely to emphasize a CreatorsOddball. See also ReclusiveArtist for artists who are secretive.
11	----
12	!!Examples:
13
14	[[foldercontrol]]
15
16	[[folder:Comic Books]]
17	* Creator/MarvelComics:
18	** ''Brotherhood'', about [[ComicBook/XMen the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants]], was apparently written by "X". Popular opinion was that this was Howard Mackie, who revealed this to be true in November 2018.
19	** ''The Generic Comic Book'' is credited to "An Author, a Pencilist, an Inker, a Colorist and a Letterist." The writer was later revealed to be Steve Skeates.
20	* ''Farlaine the Goblin'' was originally published anonymously, but the author finally settled on a pen name "Pug Grumble" after a few years because he realized not having a name made it difficult for people to follow up on new books in the series. Also, he goes to comic conventions and more and more started requiring some sort of name before they could be given a table space.
21	[[/folder]]
22
23	[[folder:Fan Works]]
24	* ''Fanfic/{{Bubbles}}'' (''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''): This one-shot is a widely circulated story, but its writer is unknown.
25	* ''Fanfic/{{Paradoxus}}'' (''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'', ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''): Being a fanfic pretty much ensures all of its authors use internet pseudonyms instead of their real names. There's the main author, [[https://www.wattpad.com/user/Bloom_Farella Bloom_Farella]], whose name includes the name of a canonical character and some random Italian surname; as well as the secondary authors: [[https://www.wattpad.com/user/PhoenixDaybreak Daybreak]], Popsicle, and Crowgirl. Plus [[https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/silvstardust Silvstardust]] as the official illustrator.
26	[[/folder]]
27
28	[[folder:Film]]
29	* Most of the Indonesian crew of the 2012 documentary ''The Act of Killing'' (retelling the 1965-66 mass killings that led to the dictatorship of Suharto) were not named in the credits to avoid reprisals. The companion film ''The Look of Silence'' also re-examines the killings through an unidentified man's tracking down of the men who murdered his brother.
30	* The director/star of the [[Main/FoundFootageFilms found footage film]] ''Murder Death Koreatown'', which is based on an actual murder case in Los Angeles's Koreatown neighborhood, has never revealed his name. The film purports to be a true crime documentary about the director's attempt to solve his neighbor's murder, which quickly devolves into him believing that the identity of the culprit was covered up by a conspiracy and [[MindScrew slowly going insane and being convinced that the conspiracy is now targeting him]]. It's generally believed that the story about the conspiracy was a work of fiction, and that the director is choosing to stay anonymous to avoid the legal ramifications of making the film in the first place. The same is true for most of the cast and crew. [[note]]([[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e6c64af0f525367f08392e4/t/6010c9aec531fe0cee0cb52b/1611712942802/JiBak_Resume.pdf The resume of an actress]] who was featured in the movie suggests his name was [[spoiler: Jesse Berger]])[[/note]]
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Literature]]
34	%%* ''Film/PrimaryColors'' by Anonymous. Fifteen years later, ''[[OneLetterTitle O]]'' by Anonymous. Also ''Literature/TheBookWithNoName''.
35	* A Prussian nobleman wrote plays under the name J.E. Mand -- ''jemand'' is German for "someone."
36	%%* ''Literature/GoAskAlice''... [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie allegedly]].
37	* ''Literature/TheBrideStrippedBare''. Australian Nikki Gemmell eventually revealed her authorship.
38	* ''Literature/TheNameOfThisBookIsSecret'' and its sequels by Pseudonymous Bosch, although it's pretty much confirmed by now that he's author Raphael Simon.
39	* ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'', on its initial publication, to hide that [[Creator/MaryShelley the author]] was a young woman.
40	* During her lifetime, Creator/JaneAusten's novels only identified the author with the words "By a Lady". Parodying this, ''Series/TheTwoRonnies'' serial "The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town" was credited to "Creator/SpikeMilligan & A Gentleman" (The Gentleman being Ronnie Barker).
41	* The ''Federalist Papers'' were published under the pseudonym "Publius". The papers were drafted in response to the ''Anti-Federalist Papers'', a series of parallel essays, published under the pseudonyms "Cato", "Brutus", "Centinel", and "Federal Farmer".
42	* The author of Literature/GirlWhoAreYouAlienErImAnAlien is completely anonymous. Not even so much as a pen name or username is given, as the forum the story was posted on allowed users to post without revealing their names.
43	* Creator/AndrewMarvell is largely remembered today for his poetry under his own name. However, he also wrote {{satire}}, some of it attacking [[CorruptPolitician dangerously powerful people]] -- so that tended to appear anonymously during his lifetime.
44	* Before his death in 2006, Iraqi leader UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein is believed to have written four novels, all of which were heavy in metaphor. Hussein wrote the first two under the name "He Who Wrote It," a classic way to preserve anonymity among Arabs.
45	* Parodied in ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid: Double Down''. Greg has to write an author biography for school, so he picks the guy who writes the ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' [[BlandNameProduct knockoff]] ''Spinetinglers''. The author's name is obviously fake ("I.M. Spooky") and the AboutTheAuthor section mentions nothing about him besides the fact that he's still working on new books. For his biography, Greg puts "???" under every section besides his name.
46	* ''Literature/DiaryOfAnOxygenThief'' purports to be an autobiography of an advertising executive who enjoyed emotionally abusing women, and regrets it so much that he considers himself undeserving of the very air he breathes, hence the book's title. It has a sequel, ''ChameleonInACandyStore''.
47	* ''Literature/PrimaryColors'' was credited to Anonymous, with lots of speculation over who it might be, but political reporter Joe Klein was eventually outed as the author.
48	* The 1808 novel ''Literature/TheWomanOfColour'' was published anonymously, and its true author has yet to be discovered.
49
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Live-Action Television]]
53	* The identity of George Kelting, star of ''Series/TheTelevisionGhost'', was kept a secret during the show's run in the early 1930s. His name was only revealed in the 1986 book ''American Television Drama: The Experimental Years''.
54	[[/folder]]
55
56	[[folder:Music]]
57	* In 1989, a song called [[http://www.45cat.com/record/crb10522 "Spelling on the Stone"]], about the ElvisLives myth,[[note]]The song's TitleDrop referred to Elvis' middle named being incorrectly spelled "Aaron" instead of "Aron" on his gravestone, which believers in the myth thought was a clue that Elvis wasn't actually buried there[[/note]] was released by an unknown Elvis impersonator with no name put on the single or album, which, since the song is a first-person confession about FakingTheDead, was clearly a ruse to make people think it ''was'' Elvis himself. Despite being picked up for distribution by a major CountryMusic label (Curb Records) and spending some time on the ''Billboard'' charts, the song's performer has never been definitively identified (though evidence points to it being Dan Willis, who'd done some work for LS Records, the indie label that originally released the song).
58	* Music/TheMostMysteriousSongOnTheInternet, and other songs being investigated by the same people (dubbed ''lostwave'' by the community), are unintentional examples due to the information being lost.
59	* A 17-second segment of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMHB0k8-wKg an upbeat, 1980s-sounding pop song]], known simply as Music/EveryoneKnowsThat or "Ulterior Motives", that has been uploaded to [=WatZatSong=] in 2021. However, the rest of the song remains lost, title and author included.
60	* A mysterious 1999 document called [[https://themorningnews.org/article/same-as-it-ever-was "The Rock Critical List"]], with a whole bunch of mean TakeThat quips aimed at several prominent music critics, circulated in music circles (mercilessly critiquing their writing styles, lifestyles and even physical appearances), with the author only identifying themselves by the jokey PenName [=JoJo=] Dancer, The Gay Rapper (a reference to the autobiographical Creator/RichardPryor film ''Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling''). Much of the intrigue was that there was only a small pool of possible suspects for [=JoJo=] Dancer's true identity, and they would probably be someone who the List's targets knew personally. Based on the writing style, suspicion quickly fell on ''Spin'' magazine staffer Charles Aaron, who ''was'' attacked in the List (for writing a positive profile of Music/LimpBizkit), but got off relatively easy compared to the others. Aaron has publicly denied writing it and refuses to discuss the matter, and no one else has ever claimed responsibility for being [=JoJo=] Dancer, but some former co-workers claim that Aaron admitted to them privately that he wrote it.
61	[[/folder]]
62
63	[[folder:Video Games]]
64	* Many [[UnlicensedGame unlicensed multicarts, and pirated versions of games]] typically have the company who made that bootleg go without credit, mainly to avoid lawsuits. There are several exceptions though, mainly when it comes to the cracking scene (e.g. Anthrox, Red Sector, Vision Factory, and [[SimilarlyNamedWorks Anthrax]]), and games that don't infringe on people's copyrights (e.g. Color Dreams, Open Corp., American Video Entertainment, and Idea-Tek).
65	%%* ''Devil's Wheel'' for the Platform/Commodore64.
66	%%* ''Escape From Colditz'' for the Platform/{{Amiga}}.
67	%%* ''Maabus'' for PC.
68	* Many of the credits in ''VideoGame/MegaManII'' are aliases, e.g. [[Creator/KeijiInafune Inafking]], Tom Pon, 2m03cm Man, Yuukichan's Papa, Fish Man, etc.
69	%%* ''Office Darts'' for PC.
70	%%* The bootleg game ''[[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Powermon]]''.
71	* The creator of ''VideoGame/LunaGame'', a famous series of {{creepypasta}} games based on ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', has chosen to remain anonymous. Part of this choice was to add to the game's spooky and haunted feel, and part was to dodge the backlash they knew the first game would get. (Bear in mind, it was published before ''My Little Pony'' creepypastas became a staple of the fandom, so it was pretty shocking at the time, despite it overall being pretty tame and even hokey.) They've never publicly revealed their identity, since, while they're not ashamed of having made the series, they don't want to be known as "the creator of ''Luna Game''" forever. However, they did talk with [=YouTuber=] {{WebVideo/Izzzyzzz}} and give some insight for her [[https://youtu.be/pZ0yNTyWCKU video covering the series]].
72	[[/folder]]
73
74	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
75	* Nearly all creators of the VisualNovel ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' use nicknames (e.g. cpl_crud, silentcook, Aura).
76	[[/folder]]
77
78	[[folder:Web Animation]]
79	* Very little is known about the person who makes ''WebAnimation/OverSimplified'', including his name (he's normally referred to as "[=OverSimplified=]" the few times he refers to himself in third person).
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Webcomics]]
83	%%* ''Webcomic/TheWotch'' by [[PunnyName Anne Onymous]].
84	* WebOriginal/VoxAndKingBeau is a Creepypasta originally posted on [[Platform/FourChan /x/]] that takes the format of a young woman named Vox who posts on /x/ looking for advice. The author of the story never goes by anything other than Vox or hints to the story being fictional at all.
85	* ''Webcomic/CoolAndNewWebComic'' is a parody of ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' by an author known as "o". There are many theories as to who the author is, to the point that the very mystery of his identity is a meme.
86	[[/folder]]
87
88	[[folder:Web Original]]
89	* The animation studio that made the short ''WebAnimation/DreamComeTrue: A Mule Mom's Story'' is completely unknown. No credits are included, and the only known crew member is sound designer Shawn Sussman, who uploaded the video to Platform/YouTube.
90	[[/folder]]

Context Main / AnonymousAuthor