I was recently approached (via private message on LiveJournal of all things) by someone who had tracked me to there as the only alternate contact I had listed on my DevniantArt account. Their request was simple: they noticed I hadn't used deviantArt recently and wondered if they could have the account. Apparently they go by the nickname Kermi as well and hated to see the name going to waste.
My first impulse was to decline their friendly request. After all, I got there first, the account was mine to have.
But on reflection, just why the hell would I want a deviantArt account? The friends I had there stopped posting art long ago, and the journal posts are usually cross-posted to LiveJournal or of no interest to me. I am not an artist myself. I had not visited the site in some time.
In this case "some time" amounts to four years. I have held the account since 2003 and not logged in since 2006. Racking my brains for hazy green-grey memories I tried to recall how many times I distinctly remembered logging into dA between registration and the day I could no longer be bothered logging in.
Ten times? More? less? It certainly never made it into my bookmarks folder for regular visitation. I just registered there so if I felt the urge to visit, I could, without feeling like an outsider.
In any case, it felt like no loss to me to give up the username to this person. I posted a journal entry on Da (my first and only) letting my friends who still use the site that no, my account wasn't jacked - someone else would be using it now.
But I started to wonder at the wider implications here.
It's easy to forget just how long I've been using the internet. It has in fact been over 13 years since I started surfing the intertubes. I have probably at one time or another been registered at literally hundreds of message boards, community websites and social networks.
I regularly visit and maintain posting habits at perhaps a dozen (keep in mind I am of course referring the message boards and other online communities. Obviously I visit more than a dozen websites... hell, I read more webcomics than that).
Some of the sites no longer exist but most still do.
I reflected on this. Hundreds of websites across the dozens of email addressses I've had since my initial forays after I cunningly registered the email address [email protected], assuming the handle Iain-Paul Freeley. You may better know him by his first two initials.
In all of my online interactions I used some lame pseudonym, even to my real life friends on ICQ and IRC.
In 1998 that I joined my first internet message board and even then I hastily registered under the name WedgeAntilles, because it was the first Star Wars related name that came to mind and the message board was the Jedi Council at theforce.net
I digress. No one is reading this for my internet life story.
The point is, at some point I decided I if needed to be a part of something I felt this needed to be unified under one recognisable username. I became Kermi online, and pretty much any site I visited that offered the option, I registered on it.
Sometimes it's because you can't view content or comment unless you're registered. Sometimes just because the option is there.
In any case, I have developed an internet history, an electronic trail I suppose of my browsing habits as they've evolved over time.
Maybe I'm just more attached to my usual handle - it's uncommon enough that when I sign up at a website or message board I don't have to adorn it with extra letters, numbers or inappropriate punctuation in order to help it find its place in the community. There's a good chance that if you run into Kermi on the internet, that's me you're talking to. Obviously there are other Kermis out there, but still.
On the other hand other people have less of a connection to their online identities, considering them as disposable as the free email accounts they used to register them.
So what I'm wondering is, are any other Escapists this dedicated to securing their favoured username at any old website they stumble across? Do you diligently register for memberships on websites you may well never visit a second time? Does it help you feel like part of that community? How attached are you to who you are online?
Would you prefer to maintain your e-life compeltely independently of your meatworld?
My first impulse was to decline their friendly request. After all, I got there first, the account was mine to have.
But on reflection, just why the hell would I want a deviantArt account? The friends I had there stopped posting art long ago, and the journal posts are usually cross-posted to LiveJournal or of no interest to me. I am not an artist myself. I had not visited the site in some time.
In this case "some time" amounts to four years. I have held the account since 2003 and not logged in since 2006. Racking my brains for hazy green-grey memories I tried to recall how many times I distinctly remembered logging into dA between registration and the day I could no longer be bothered logging in.
Ten times? More? less? It certainly never made it into my bookmarks folder for regular visitation. I just registered there so if I felt the urge to visit, I could, without feeling like an outsider.
In any case, it felt like no loss to me to give up the username to this person. I posted a journal entry on Da (my first and only) letting my friends who still use the site that no, my account wasn't jacked - someone else would be using it now.
But I started to wonder at the wider implications here.
It's easy to forget just how long I've been using the internet. It has in fact been over 13 years since I started surfing the intertubes. I have probably at one time or another been registered at literally hundreds of message boards, community websites and social networks.
I regularly visit and maintain posting habits at perhaps a dozen (keep in mind I am of course referring the message boards and other online communities. Obviously I visit more than a dozen websites... hell, I read more webcomics than that).
Some of the sites no longer exist but most still do.
I reflected on this. Hundreds of websites across the dozens of email addressses I've had since my initial forays after I cunningly registered the email address [email protected], assuming the handle Iain-Paul Freeley. You may better know him by his first two initials.
In all of my online interactions I used some lame pseudonym, even to my real life friends on ICQ and IRC.
In 1998 that I joined my first internet message board and even then I hastily registered under the name WedgeAntilles, because it was the first Star Wars related name that came to mind and the message board was the Jedi Council at theforce.net
I digress. No one is reading this for my internet life story.
The point is, at some point I decided I if needed to be a part of something I felt this needed to be unified under one recognisable username. I became Kermi online, and pretty much any site I visited that offered the option, I registered on it.
Sometimes it's because you can't view content or comment unless you're registered. Sometimes just because the option is there.
In any case, I have developed an internet history, an electronic trail I suppose of my browsing habits as they've evolved over time.
Maybe I'm just more attached to my usual handle - it's uncommon enough that when I sign up at a website or message board I don't have to adorn it with extra letters, numbers or inappropriate punctuation in order to help it find its place in the community. There's a good chance that if you run into Kermi on the internet, that's me you're talking to. Obviously there are other Kermis out there, but still.
On the other hand other people have less of a connection to their online identities, considering them as disposable as the free email accounts they used to register them.
So what I'm wondering is, are any other Escapists this dedicated to securing their favoured username at any old website they stumble across? Do you diligently register for memberships on websites you may well never visit a second time? Does it help you feel like part of that community? How attached are you to who you are online?
Would you prefer to maintain your e-life compeltely independently of your meatworld?