No, I'm not asking why you chose your Eden screen name - there's at least a half-dozen threads about that. No, I'm interested in your online identity through the span of time you've been online.
People sometimes go through dozens of online names ... some of them are for specific forums or online games, or they're new identities created around a transition in your life (getting married, having a baby, etc). How many of us know or are the types that would identify themselves as 'so-and-so's mom' or 'his girlfriend' or 'nondescript with a couple of numbers tacked on'? How many even change their names every couple of months on the same forums?
Some people have had only one online cognomen their entire time online. As one of those people, I can safely say that if you ran into my regular online name, it would definitely be me and no one else (after what I've written, no one else would want to claim it). I've had that name for thirteen years now. Chili is strictly and only for EF because I'm not sure how deep any employers can dig me up on my normal online name. Even I changed it when took the moniker "Girl" out at the end because - at thirty-three - I felt I no longer needed to identify with being youthful.
My normal online name has been with me through three email server changes, my singlehood, engagement, marriage, fandom shifts, serious relocations, and divorce, and is just as much a part of my identity as my birth name. Even some offline friends call me by my online name and have introduced me as such to others ... and I even answer to that name.
I suppose I should add that the internet was not around during my childhood, and I was rather late to come to it in 1999, anyway, so I never grew up with that dynamic of the net always being there.
So, pick and choose what you'd like to talk about:
how many online identities? (you don't have to say what they are)
any of them created for transitional periods in your life?
do friends mix up or consider your online identity your 'actual' name?
how close is your online identity's personality to your own?
do you change your name often or had the same one since you began online life?
Anything else you'd like to bring up, I'd really like to hear.
People sometimes go through dozens of online names ... some of them are for specific forums or online games, or they're new identities created around a transition in your life (getting married, having a baby, etc). How many of us know or are the types that would identify themselves as 'so-and-so's mom' or 'his girlfriend' or 'nondescript with a couple of numbers tacked on'? How many even change their names every couple of months on the same forums?
Some people have had only one online cognomen their entire time online. As one of those people, I can safely say that if you ran into my regular online name, it would definitely be me and no one else (after what I've written, no one else would want to claim it). I've had that name for thirteen years now. Chili is strictly and only for EF because I'm not sure how deep any employers can dig me up on my normal online name. Even I changed it when took the moniker "Girl" out at the end because - at thirty-three - I felt I no longer needed to identify with being youthful.
My normal online name has been with me through three email server changes, my singlehood, engagement, marriage, fandom shifts, serious relocations, and divorce, and is just as much a part of my identity as my birth name. Even some offline friends call me by my online name and have introduced me as such to others ... and I even answer to that name.
I suppose I should add that the internet was not around during my childhood, and I was rather late to come to it in 1999, anyway, so I never grew up with that dynamic of the net always being there.
So, pick and choose what you'd like to talk about:
how many online identities? (you don't have to say what they are)
any of them created for transitional periods in your life?
do friends mix up or consider your online identity your 'actual' name?
how close is your online identity's personality to your own?
do you change your name often or had the same one since you began online life?
Anything else you'd like to bring up, I'd really like to hear.
