Ordinary Gweilo

Our old friend Conrad (Gweilo Diaries) suddenly disappeared a few weeks ago, and then his domain was acquired by someone else (who hoped to profit from all the traffic), which seemed to be fairly conclusive proof that he had gone for good.

Now he has offered a brief explanation (via Shaky) for his sudden and unannounced disappearance:

He learned that someone was trying to uncover his real name and identity, and since his career would suffer if that happened he decided what the hell and just went off the air.  (I understand that completely, by the way.  I often wonder whether it was wise for me to use my real name.  Thankfully, it’s an incredibly common name.)

Actually, I thought everybody already knew Conrad’s real name.  I have read a few bloggers who don’t like Conrad making allusions to his real name, and have been told where he works by more than one person (obviously I wouldn’t divulge it – unless I was very drunk or offered large sums of money).

I have always assumed that anyone (well, anyone who could be bothered) could discover who was behind any blog – unless the individual kept a very low profile and used a service such as Blogger.  Conrad did neither of these things, and he also made a few enemies along the way, so it seems quite possible that there was someone out there trying to cause him problems.

There have indeed been a few recent cases of people being sacked because they ran blogs, and even though Conrad only wrote briefly (and in the most general terms) about his job, and never mentioned his firm, they might still have objected.  I suppose if I had to choose between my career and spending many hours slaving over a hot blog, I’d probably do the same as Conrad.