handles, profiles, selves
Heya! This blogpost was written based on a title I got traded by Frances Crossley!
If you wanna know about how/why behind that, you can read the post I made that started this whole thing.
Honestly, I think the whole concept of online handles & nicknames are one of my favorite things to come out of the internet. They let us play around with our identity, let us easily try on new ones. With how most people don't really ever consider changing their name, and how difficult it can be to actually fully change it depending on where you live, I think it's awesome that the web provides this opportunity to create a sort of 'second identity' for ourselves. To pick a name that represents you.
I've gone through a couple of handles over the years - most all of them pretty terrible - before finally landing on kami. I won't list the origin story of them all here, partially because they suck and partially because I don't want to reveal too much of my digital footprint, but I will tell you how I got my current one.
Kami actually started out as the first name of my Final Fantasy XIV character. I've got a bunch of them, I was really into making alts to replay the story. Kami was actually how I realized I was trans, funnily enough. It was the first female character I made in ffxiv, and it was how I met my current boyfriend. So, that's partially why I'm rather attached to it. How I got the name was actually kind of uninspired, I'll be honest. I just picked it off of a '100 Fantasy Character Names' sort of website. Over there it was actually listed as a last name for some reason, but I thought it'd be a perfect fit for my characters first name. So, technically my FF characters has two last names lol. In case you've read this far and wanna play some FF, it's Kami Voidsun on Light, Odin.
Anyways. I think it's fascinating how we can get a sort of limited glimpse into what kind of person someone is just based on seeing their online handle - You don't really get that with "regular" names.1 For example, if you see someone named Kami, it's safe to assume they're a weeb.
Same thing goes for online profiles. It's fascinating to get this sort of small glimpse into the life of a complete stranger - It's similiar to blogging in that way. It gives you an authentic view into who a person is. Because most username aren't chosen purely through marketing decisions - They've all got a personal story, no matter how boring. And I just think that's really cool.
I mean, there are of course people that change their names, but online you always know the name was a conscious decision made by someone and not just the birthname their parents decided to call them.↩