When Facebook started aggressively enforcing its "real name" policy recently, a whole lot of people got bent out of shape real fast—including but not limited to drag queens, reports the New York Times. One issue at hand is that some people have multiple identities, not just the one on their driver's license or passport, and they want to continue to use them online. So it should come as no surprise that the invite-only social media site Ello, which was first introduced in the spring and does not require that one's username match one's legal name, is fast becoming a popular alternative—especially in the LGBT community, reports the Daily Dot.
One blogger at Jezebel describes Ello as "the Facebook alternative that's less icky than Google+, ad-free and willing to let you be the person you've always wanted." BetaBoston reports that Ello is "very simplistic and almost sartorially beautiful by comparison to the image, button, column, and advertisement overload that is Facebook these days." In fact, one of its founders, author, filmmaker and Kidrobot toy creator Paul Budnitz, says Ello is receiving more than 4,000 invite requests an hour. Part of its manifesto? "You are not a product." How's that for addressing millennial angst? (Here's another reason to love or hate Facebook's real-name policy: catching criminals.)
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