redbrunja | A Note On Pseudonyms

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fandom,
rants

A Note On Pseudonyms

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.

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I do the exact same thing. >_o;

Also, if I look at a story, and somewhere in the story there is an OC (I don't read stories where the main pairing includes an OC, but every once in a while, people put side-characters with an OC just so that they are obviously paired with someone) and it just so happens that that OC is your username. I immediately start thinking self-insert and completely ignore the fanfic.

<---- do Shakespearean characters count?

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Well, my username is named after a character from a George McDonald fairy tale. But I like to think it's a bit obscure. I know what you mean though. ginnyharry4evah. hahah!

When I was fourteen and just starting to really get into fandom, I made the mistake of grabbing fictional character's name for my handle. Later I realized that I hadn't even spelled it right, and now I'm just way less enthusiastic about that character than I was then. Switching away from it wasn't too painful, though, and I'm glad I did. I feel like it was just an embarrassing name to have, looking back, for pretty much the reasons you gave.

Haha I'm exactly the same way.

Eh, at my age, I figure a choice on those sorts of issues is good for a number of years at least.

;-)

Having said that, my online nick is something that I made up myself, ages ago, for RPG, rather than a character name from something I've read. It turned out to be a word in Japanese, but that's just an amusing coincidence.

...Guilty. And I'm reading all these comments right now about people who DON'T use these characters in their usernames, and I feel so pathetic...-_-

I've never really thought about it before, but its the same for me. If your user name has a fannish connotation to it, especially if its really fannish (like Deidei's_playtoy, or MrsUchihaSakura) I generally don't take them seriously. I assume their fanfic or fanart sucks (because they lack creativity and are probably a fantard), and that they are young and/or immature, and not particularly intelligent.

I'm sure there are a lot of(at least some)smart and talented people who are just really bad at choosing clever names. But. Some of my readers/fans have names like this, and I have to admit the often hyperfangirl squeevomit in their reviews only reinforces the stereotype.

*long pause* It doesn't count if it's an obscure reference to a character that was mentioned in a video game does it? *hides* I swear, I just liked the name.

I definitely see where you're coming from, but I think there are two primary reasons for this. A lot of times, it's those characters that draw tweens and teens into the internet, and they don't REALIZE it's so uncreative. But yes, I see what you mean about there USUALLY being a correlation between people who name themselves "sasuke'sGIRL" and a blatant disregard for the English language, structured arguments, and OOCness.

However, I also think there might be a fandom-related element to it. Let's face it, Naruto attracts a LOT of immaturity, mostly because the character IS very childish. That's not to say that a lot of reasonable people don't like it, but it DOES attract a younger crowd than, say, Resident Evil.

Back when I was still really active on the Resident Evil forums (the games, not the wretched movies), a lot of people used character names and they weren't any less mature than anybody else. Another thing to consider is that people sometimes use different names on forums to adapt to the fandom on those forums better. However, on something that's multi-fandom like Livejournal, it does seem a little odd.

So, while I generally don't jump to any conclusions, I can see the connection too, but usually before I look at someone's username for memorization I've already read something they've posted/read and learned something about them that way.

I totally agree with you on this! Though technically my username is the name of a character in something I read when I was younger so maybe I'm guilty too. Haha. I will say that I crafted the name to my own online identity to the point where I associate the name with myself and not with the character. But usernames like "snapeluver112" and the like are... yeah... Let's find something else, please.

ya know, i do that too...the avoiding or not reading thing...weird, i never realized that though...

Mine is just two of the nicknames I have combined. I was the first baby born in the 20th Special Ops Squadron my parents were in, and the bar they went to was the Hooch bar, and I became the "Hooch Baby". haha =3.

And my uncle lived in Japan for 10 years and had some habits ingrained and he and my aunt called me "Neko-chan". So I just combined them! ^-^

I kind of like references to a certain character.

It's more of an annoyance to me when an original character name is used for an online handle, particularly if they're currently using said character in something they're writing whether it is fan fiction or original fiction and submitting it online for viewing. It's hard to get over and through a story if every time the character is brought in I'm thinking about the person who is writing it. Plus, it just screams 'Self Insert'.

It's kind of funny though that you brought this up when the 'Writer's Block' question is 'How did you choose your Live Journal username? Is there an interesting story behind it?'

Judging someone based on their username seems ten kinds of petty. That said, I can say with absolute certainty that 95% of us do it (myself included), and have no shame in doing so.

See, this is where I'm torn. I don't know where I fall. Character usernames only annoy me sometimes, when it's like "so-and-so's_girl" or "certainpairing_4ever". But…

I adopted the name Yuki as my online handle because not only does it mean 'snow,' which I love (and don't get ANY of in the south, goddammit), but a lot of my favorite characters in anime are named Yuki. (Fruits Basket, Gravitation, Hikaru no Go, and I don't watch Haruhi Suzumiya, but I always liked Yuki Nagato's character design, even before I knew her name. It's a trend.) Yuki also became the name of my Yu Yu Hakusho-based OC when joking around with

renegadekitsune some years ago.

When I came to LJ, I came because

renegadekitsune made my account for me, under this name. So does it count as a character handle, an OC thing, or just a conceited nickname? I've thought about changing it before, but I wouldn't know to what. And I think I'd miss being yukitheawesome.

[/ponderings]

Hunh. I've always seen my usernames as an expression of myself, so it never made sense when people named themselves after characters. The closest I ever came to that was calling myself "silveRocket" when I was thirteen and in the Pokemon fandom, and even that was a reference to my RL name (which translates to "silver" out of the Gaelic root).

After I got tired of the Pokemon fandom, I realized the silveRocket handle wasn't workable for other fandoms and ditched it with a resolution not to do that again. I spent most of high school calling myself "Bandit", but that was too widely taken and I was not enamored of the practice of putting numbers at the end of usernames, so after ff.net stopped allowing duplicate name, I decided to change it again.

I was studying Japanese at the time, and I wanted a really unique and goofy name without any of the usual neko shojo kawaii asshattery, so I asked my teacher a few questions and ended up with tobu ishi, which means "flying rock". An oxymoron, a surreal image, and a handy way for people to inform me that my writing was subpar, all at once.

(Then after three or four years of using that name, I got to Japan and discovered that the Tobu company--different kanji, same pronunciation--has its name prominently displayed the dozens of hotels and railway lines it seems to own, allowing me to play a delightful pseudo-Marquis of Carabas game. I have never looked back.)

All that tl;dr aside, when I see a handle that consists of a female (or uke-fied male) character's first name and a guy's last name, my interest in anything that person has done goes instantly right down the tubes. Any fandom username seems a bit daft and perishable, but that particular trope drives me nuts.

...come to think of it, that might be especially since I don't like the maiden/married name custom, but that's just a personal bias. >.>;

Incidentally, what are your thoughts on theme weddings? (Getting married while dressed up as Princess Leia and Han Solo under an arch of lightsabers, or Utena and Anthy, or what have you.)

To be honest, this has never bothered me (unless it's especially obnoxious, like 'xoxokakashisgurrrlxoxo' or something). Just want to clarify, though, that the 'silver' in my username refers to the colour (and at the time I was a teenybopper who thought it'd be cool to shove a pun in there, ha), and it's entirely coincidental that Kakashi's hair happens to be silver. :P

Couldn't have you secretly shunning me thus.

I have to admit I've never considered it from a sexist angle before. It bothered me because I thought taking a character's name lacked originality, and you should only save a character's name for an RP account. I think if you're really obscure it's ok, but other than that it does bother me.

~~I can't remember if I've ever enjoyed a fic from someone who obviously had a "fandom" username.~~ Ok I just checked and I totally do. But they are definitely exceptions to the rule, because most of the time the authors are crap. I either find out about them by a friend reccing them, or by sheer accident.

My LJ username is technically inspired by fandom, but they don't contain any elements that are actually canon. Also, I was never in one of the fandoms, even as a lurker. (The fandoms being Sailor Moon and Lord of the Rings, LotR being the one I didn't participate in.)

You have, however, made me think about this in a way I hadn't before, and for that you get kudos.

Hooboy this makes me think of the Mrs. Orlando Bloom bags and the such that were popular a few years ago -and slightly guiltily of my main user name for almost everything but lj.

I picked kouusa when I was thirteen I think -or younger- and was a BIG fan of Sailor Moon with the username being after my OTP. Worse because it was the name of a self-insert later. Thankfully all stuffed in a closet with out touching the internet. Although, I thought I was being smart not using any full names...

I still use it because I haven't grown out of my love for the series or the pairing. It's easy for me to use and remember and I found with playing with kanji it can be rather funny. Like 公憂さ which I think means something like melancholy companion. Maybe. Oooo or 憂さの公. Gloom's companion?

Yeah, I still have fun with the name.

I think my perception on this has changed over the course of a few years with LJ. When I first started here, a lot of people I made "friends" with were people who moved en masse from the Crumbling Walls Spuffy forum, where I was one of several mods for a while. BTVS was my first real online immersive fandom experience. I didn't really have that bias against character names in usernames that you describe above, although I admit I have certainly of dash of that cynicism now. The only thoughts I had about it for a long while was, for one, the feeling that it was hard to tell other online fans apart or know them as memorable because their names were too simple or interchangeable. The other was an undefined sense that it was not creative enough to satisfy me as an expressive creative writing-minded person. (eek, the grammar of that sentence.)

But there are writers I've had on my flist and still do who have some variation of "spike" or "buffy" or a combo in their username that I've known for a long time and whose fanworks I seek out and enjoy. They are removed from the taint in my eyes.

However, in newer fandoms...I feel like the marriage of LJ+ff.net as growing bastions of fandom are deeply, deeply established now, and as such, any new fandom is hugely influenced by the structure and mores of Fandom as a whole. In that way, I do think's its a very noob thing these days to pick a character name in your username. (though I'd totally let blooming_sakura pass on metaphorical grounds, if cheesy.)Fandom has been Fandom online for a while now, and everyone knows that original names are more memorable, get more attention, and linger. Many of us are also into multiple simultaneous fandoms instead of just mired in one, and thus feel less compelled to be defined by one particular fandom.

If I see someone named "tonystarktoy" or "zukofanlover" or "sheldonsmistress" I'm going to assume you're new to fandom and this is still something you're learning. I'm also probably going to have low expectations and assume your fanfic is a growing process. You haven't figured out how big the sandbox is, or what place in it you want to occupy. If, however, I see someone named "methos_kid" I'm going to assume that the fan is probably not a teenager, and has been around for long enough to keep the name of a fandom 10 years old and still be cool with it. That person I wouldn't have a problem reading.

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