Yesterday I discovered I have a Twitter account; and I just uploaded a picture to imjur. Off the top of my head, my usernames around the Internet are Johnny L.A., Gordon Bennett, RogerRoundley, and Blank Reg. There may be others.
How many usernames do you have, and what are they?
Outside of the Dope, I am Lurker most places, Amish Gone Bad on a biker site, and a cousin from mothers side of the family on Facebook. Most of the boards I visited have folded but thanks to the Way Back Machine I can still find some of my old classics when I really want to.
I use generally lingyi or a variation with additional numbers if lingyi is taken. I purposely chose a username that fairly common so my online activity if fairly vague. I’ve caught and reported a number of trolls because they have a unique username that appears on multiple forums. Also, I purposely keep details like my exact age and places I’ve lived vague so when I post about someone or something, someone else doesn’t read it and go “Hey, I know who lingyi is in real life!”.
A few different variations of my name, a few deliberately unconnected to the rest of my online life, although they’ve been out of use for a few years, a few just random …
Let’s say anywhere between 10 and 20, possibly more.
I’m not telling you want other usernames I have on various sites, but there’s four of them I’ve used in the past other than the one I use here. None of them are remotely related. My IRC nicknames were something completely different with one overlap between part of one of the user names and my most common nick. My AOL screen names were completely different from those as well. I generally have one that I stick to now, except in one particular area of interest I have where I use one that’s more in-line with the names used there.
I have a couple other usernames fighting the good fight elsewhere.
I’ve been tempted to change my name in real life to Buck Naked, M.D. (which would inspire confidence among my colleagues and patients). Maybe that should wait until I retire and go into consultant work.
Jophiel on my legacy sites.
I started using Syntax Error on some newer sites but the name is (unsurprisingly) often taken. So I instead started using Syntax Turtle based on my avatar which is (unsurprisingly) never taken.
Anyone who looks at pictures or videos I’ve posted, which I have taken and uploaded myself, can see my usernames. It’s not really a secret. The whole point behind made-up usernames is that they can disguise your real identity.