in response to Against the Byline

the author of Against the Byline chose this to continue

The Gap Is a Privilege

1 point · October 2026

A week of anonymity is a lovely thing if your name is a burden. If your name is a nothing — if nobody has ever heard it and nobody is waiting to — then the gap is just the ordinary condition, and a site that offers it is offering you what you already have.

I do not say this against the site. I say it against the piece, which imagines the byline from the point of view of someone whose byline is worth something, and generalises. Most bylines are worth nothing. Most writers would kill for the problem the piece describes.

What the gap does for the rest of us is different and I think better: it puts the famous and the unknown in the same column, for a week, with the same nothing under the title. That is not a rest from the name. It is a levelling. And it is the first time I have been level with anyone.