A Note On Pseudonyms

[redbrunja]

 nimblnymph  was commenting about sexism in language, and it got me thinking about usernames. Specifically, (and I know I have people on my flist who do this and I don't mean to be insulting, this is totally just my opinion) how much I hate it when people use some part of a character's name in their username.

You know.

Mrs_Hatake

I_heart_hakkai.

Anything with Snape or Severus.

Even more subtle references: blooming_sakura or whatever cause me to twitch.

First, I always wonder how long you are going to like that character enough that you want them to be the most visible part of how you present yourself online. Secondly, I make the assumption that you are fourteen and feel the need to wave around your fictional boyfriend or (also fairly common) your OTP like a banner. I also (despite knowing really excellent writers who do this, and often aren't writing about the character referenced in their handle) assume that your fanfic is not worth my time.

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

If I don't know anything else about an author besides the user name, that can really turn me off a story - as in, I won't both to read it after that.

Imagine how painful it would be to change to username, even though you don't like the character anymore.


I wouldn't think of it as painful, but you would probably lose a bit of recognition.

jumping in

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

...I would probably read fanfic by someone with a name like zuko_lollipop. In my brain, that skips past all the idolization and worship of picking character-based usernames and deviates directly into fannish geekery and weird whimsy.