I’m bored. Specifically, I’m bored with my name. Not my real name, mind you, just my online one.
Of course, this is entirely due to shortsightedness on my part; I completely failed to anticipate the addictiveness of this message board. I should have read a bit longer, maybe perused other people’s user names, taken the time to come up with something classy, something that would roll off the tongue and/or the screen in a memorable way. But no, I pick something unpronouncable (unless you try to say it like “gyrate”, I suppose).
So. Here’s the question (or, more accurately, questions): should I change my online name? Is it worth it? Will I get bored with the new one in a few months’ time? Will it confuse those few people who actually know who the hell I am? And what should I change it to? Or should I just shut the hell up and worry about more important things?
Your advice/opinions, serious or non-, welcome as always.
FWIW, yes, it’s confusing when people change screen names, but I can’t give advice, only a request that you choose something pronounceable. Pronouncable names just seem nicer and easier somehow.
Good luck with the horrors of decision-making. Did anyone ever decide to be “Chicken of Bristol”, I wonder.
It’s like reading a comic strip and imagining how the characters speak. The minute they assign an actual voice to a character (such as with “Garfield”), it destroys all illusions and fantasies (okay maybe not the right word, but you know what I mean). This is why I am glad that “Calvin and Hobbes” was never made into an animated series - it would have been horrible if it was not the same voice I hear when I read the strip. Besides, the little voices in my head really like reading the comic strips to me: they get to expand their vocabulary and amuse me at the same time.
So for the sake of the giving the little voices in my head something to do, keep your name.
Better yet, if you change your name, I’ll take over jr8!
screech-owl
(who has not had enough coffee today)
[sub]P.S. spooje, you are not an idiot. You are cool in my book (and I write anything I want to in MY book)!**
this is some sort of virus; everybody seems to be succeptible.
I just recently did the name change thing. I was Spritle for so long I got tired. Like ChiefWahoo, you, and others, I chose my name quickly (used the one I had used years ago). I had lurked a while, but never really considered what a good user name would be for me.
Now? As I considered a new name, I came up with about 5 possibilities. I chose one. I asked TubaDiva to change my screen name. Of course, she had been ill and didn’t get to for a while. Now came the second guessing. In retrospect, should I have changed? Idunno. To do again, I probably wouldn’t.
In that we are only readers of other’s thoughts and ideas, I think it’s very true that readers associate a thought pattern or posting style to a screen name; that’s all we have to attach to the style. To change your name “forces” everyone else to change that association. It’s like getting used to a new poster. Making any change would probably be best (in terms of assimilation) if it were done early in your posting life - say under 100 posts or so, IMVHO.
I’d been on the board more than a year as Da Ace, though I’d never been completely happy with that name. It was the usual story – stare at the log-in screen for ten minutes, doodling on the blotter, trying to think of a name that’s personal and unique. All the names I could think of were references, and I didn’t want to go that way (though I often wonder what life would have been like as Raymond Luxury-Yacht or Harry “Snapper” Organs). So I dredged a weird old name out of my past.
After hating that name for months and months, I finally changed it. Now I’m a happier, saner, more happening sort of frood. And I have a name that fits my posting style better. (Both seem like they should mean something, but don’t, exactly.)
So, my advice is: do it. Spend some time thinking about possible names, and choose something odd and special. Then slowly grow to loathe and despise that name. It’ll be fun!
When I first signed up, I almost chose HowlingOldOwlInTheWoods from that always misheard line in Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” You can have it, if you want.
I think Czarcasm still has “Chicken of Bristol” in his sig as a nod to evilbeth. (Checks Rename the Moderator thread)- yeah, he does. Hard to go in and get that- it’s guarded by smileys.
A virtual Oreo with quadruple cream to foolsguinea for a correct answer! See – listening to the little voices pays off sometimes. As for a reason – why not? I live here, I like it, and it would confuse people – three good reasons right there.
Forfend – an archaic form of “forbid”. That’s what comes of reading too much old literature, I guess.
If I named myself Raymond Luxury Yacht, would I have to pronounce it “Throat Warbler Mangrove”?