Pseudonymic for the people

nomos

Administrator
I've been thinking about online names for a while, since the name-switch amnesty on here a few months ago. Neither my old one or the new one seem to fit. The most natural seems to be the one that other people have given me.

K-punk has a recent post on the relationship of the pseudonym to the 'real name' and one's sense of cultivated and acquired identity. It's interesting reading his thoughts on this because, through the ups and downs at Dissensus I'd come to the conclusion that Mark F and k-punk really are not one and the same (a fact which was particularly relevant during the 'cold rationalism' debates a couple of years ago).

I think this is probably the case with all of us, but more apparent amongst the more prolific and opinionated writers.

He says:
I make no special effort to conceal my surname online; the reason I do not use it is more because I dislike, even loathe it, than because I want to keep it a secret. I loathe my name because it is mine and also because it is not mine; it is at once too intimate and seems to have no connection with me. Perhaps because the name is quite common, it never seems to fit me, or fit me alone. Nevertheless, when I see the name, I always feel a peculiar sense of shame.

'Loathing it' seemed a bit strong, but then I can sympathize. I've thought about changing my real name a number of times. My name looks like two first names put together, three if you include the middle one. Not only that, but they're probably the three most common names amongst Canadian males my age. Talk about feeling like a non-identity. Although my last name is shortened from a longer Russian one and bears a small trace of the original, people either end up imagining that it's a common one that looks similar or they mistakenly use it as my first name. So, online or off, my 'real' name doesn't do much for me.

So then there's my online identity which recently splintered. 'Autonomicforthepeople' was just a leftover from a previous period and set of interests in my life. I joined Dissensus and wanted to start writing so I just used the dormant Blogger account I already had, not expecting that I'd become one of the more common faces here or develop much of an online 'presence.' But I did and I moved into grime and dubstep spheres as well, so I kept on using 'autonomic,' a short form of the name that people knew me as already. Next week I'll even be DJing under that name for lack of a better option.

But because of the way it came about, I haven't ever felt that attached to 'autonomic' either. It just stuck. When I started the new blog I wanted a fresh start, so I changed the blog name, I post there as Paul and I changed my name here to 'nomos.' The nomos thing is less a celebration of any promise that nomadism holds than a fairly ambivalent recognition of how rootless and partially anonymous the whole online identity thing often feels. (I'd say something like k-punk's 'nomadalgia' is at work)

So now I'm nomos but I feel like I've cut something off. Mark writes:

I never chose the name 'Mark k-punk'; I started being called it for obvious reasons (the name of the site, plus the fact that I post here only under the name 'Mark'), but I embrace it and now use it because it seems more like my True Name than the name on my birth certificate ever will. It suggests a performance, but not one that is false.
I mostly agree. 'paul autonomic' is the one that seems most natural and that's because that's how people have started referring to me in posts and emails over the last couple of years. It has a nice shape too. I wouldn't write a book under the name, because I don't feel that it really carries over into my world offline except in those relatively rare circumstances when I'm around people I know online. But since I live an ocean away from most of you, that doesn't happen very often.

But I like the ring of paul autonomic and the odd time when it gets used here or on someone's blog I actually identify with it rather than wanting to shrink from it. So, there's a good chance I'll allow myself one more name change on here to get things in line.
 

nomos

Administrator
btw, if it wasn't obvious, i'm wondering what other people's take on this name/pseudonym thing is.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
i've just read a great essay about virtual identities

Monk, John, The Digital Unconscious,
Virtual/Embodied Presence/Practice/Technology edited by John Wood, Routledge: London, 1998, pp. 30-44

can't find it online but I'm sure a library will have it. He's coming from a surveillance perspective with regard virtual effigies we create.

It's a tangent from what you're talking about slightly but it may provide food for thought, interesting post Paul, I'll add more later on.
 

martin

----
I only use the name 'Martin' because I'm too lacking in imagination to come up with an impressive nickname. I used to really hate my first name, it seems to be common among wimpy, drippy nerds, autistic scientists, Richard Curtis-a-like arties and violent psychopaths for some reason. Though I always liked my surname - contrary to how you and K-Punk feel, I like it because it IS so common....

When I was doing freelance articles for other trade magazines and didn't want my employer to find out, I used to use nicknames like Harry Roberts, Joe Hawkins and John White (a Spurs player who was killed by lightning), and the weird thing was I used to feel this brilliant lack of responsibility - I'd really get into it, figuring nobody'd suss it was 'me', and enjoyed knocking them out, employing language and structure I'd never normally use. It was almost like I was possessed by the 'fakes'.
 

bassnation

the abyss
I only use the name 'Martin' because I'm too lacking in imagination to come up with an impressive nickname. I used to really hate my first name, it seems to be common among wimpy, drippy nerds, autistic scientists, Richard Curtis-a-like arties and violent psychopaths for some reason. Though I always liked my surname - contrary to how you and K-Punk feel, I like it because it IS so common....

hey, my brother-in-law is called martin and hes a... erm... nuclear physicist. ah, see what you mean. he pretends hes a plumber when he meets people, don't know if that counts?
 
O

Omaar

Guest
@mistersloane - what was the general gist of the arguments in that book - surveillance inducing someone to take on another identity as a performance? 'Real' and online surveillance work quite differently in the way they imapct on the way the self is constructed I think.

Recently started reading a chinese book, Soul Mountain (ok the title sounds a bit naff in translation) but it's interesting in the way it uses pronouns, each chapter is written using alternately 2nd or 3rd person singular. I tried this as a diary technique and its brilliant, it completely changed what I was able to write about, allowed a degree of distanciation and much greater freedom.

All the best pseudonyms here - you can even tweak the 'obscurity factor':

http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm

I'm using it to create pseudonyms for music making at the moment, it's quite liberating - each name suggests so many different possibilities. Hopefully this doesn't tigger any latent personality disorders.
 

jenks

thread death
I chose my name here because I thought i'd like the anonymity. As a teacher i didn't want to have something the pupils could easily find, however when it came to choosing a name i ended up calling myself just what the kids call me anyway!

I kind of like the names like martin, michael, dominic and oliver craner because they go against the blogospheric vein - they aren't whimsical and are not attempting to project a virtual personality redolent of hipsterism.

I have always really liked your avatar, nomos - i think avatars themselves are interesting as they are a non-langauge based attempt to project something interesting about ourselves and are often at odds with the linguistic personality we are presenting - Kpunk's Bree for example (backjob used to have a funny one and i always liked droid's previous ones; eden has a cool one, but then he has a really cool name as well!)
 
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Lichen

Well-known member
I chose my mine because lichen is not the kind of thing people have an opinion about or any associations with. it's sort of inert.
 

nomos

Administrator
it's actually one of guy debord's mates from a photo in greil marcus' lipstick traces. i figured if i was a woman in france in the 60s that's how i'd look :cool:
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Michelle Bernstein was in the SI, so good spot, labrat!

I'm off down the pub again in a minute, but would like to point out that Eden isn't the name I was born with. :)

I'll try to come back and comment more fully soon (I bet you can't wait, eh?) tho.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
here she is with Debord and the underrated Asger Jorn:

paris-photo.gif
 

nomos

Administrator
oh i love that one. i have that on my hard drive somewhere. some of the dissensus avatars should gather for an homage photo in the same style, for posterity. (i guess there was that cut-out one from the resonance documentary, but that was an ungathering.)

yeah i've been curious about yours john. no pressure to undo the mystique though ;)
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
@mistersloane - what was the general gist of the arguments in that book - surveillance inducing someone to take on another identity as a performance? 'Real' and online surveillance work quite differently in the way they imapct on the way the self is constructed I think.
.

Hey Omaar,

It's an essay - and I'm paraphrasing but can look it out if you want more detail - where the guy describes in detail the traces each of ones movements within cyberspace, how they are tracked and how ones virtual 'effigy' then becomes a parallel state for either ( us ) or an-other to use, how we do that and kinda why we are doing that as well, it's much more of a theory essay than the guy putting it to any performative type use, it's an essay from Goldsmiths Computer Art masters.
 

boomnoise

♫
what's really strange about this is how now so many people call me boomnoise, or a variant there of, in real life.

i'm quite used to it though having been referred to by my school nickname for 15 years before moving to london and being afforded the opportunity to rename myself.

but recently i've slipped back into being known online and in real life by my sobriquet.

i don't mind it really. mike isn't the greatest of names.
 
I shouldn't even be here...:eek:

...i only posted as 'the undisputed truth' as a pisstake and an homage to one of my favourite funked up out of space bands from the 70's

i've lost trak of all the boards Ive been on, banned from and all the pseudonyms i've been and all the hotmail accounts i've had...

...it's so hard coming up with a good pseudonym or hotmail name

funny thing though is I've always alternated the starts of lines with...

...and put a space between every line

the avatar is my adapatation of the 74 commonwealth games logo here in Christchurch...

...I wanted to incorporate a swastika and the union jack to represent colonization and nationalism while turning it back to maori ownership with the use of koru
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Interesting thread Paul - Autonomic (I'd roll with ! unusual , not heard everyday)

Re: Real names
early on I had the feeling that I guess many have of - what kind of name is this ?
- I am going to go the other way and make up my own identity.
One result was the 3 boys core of 'TWA' (Tagami Woodward Argabright),
our group of kids who loved Marvel Comics , Robotfighter and SpaceGhost and spent our Saturdays at John T's house drawing robots and spaceships with breaks for Japanese senbei and tea graciously served by John's mom.

One thing was always a pain in school - getting my last name Argabright into those little boxes one was given to put down your name.
One result here was that as soon as I was out of HS, I shortened it to 'Arbright'
it was a phase gotten over within some years tho'.
Consistency would have been nice tho 'as some early releases were tagged Arbright and mispellings never ended after that !

Once confident enough here in the big city tho' , was back to full last name
within / behind the names of groups chosen through the years.
By the time I had put in the time to learn some family tree back history I became happy and even touch of pride about it historically (old Ukrainian Cossack roots on mom's side , German on dad's)

Re: Online
Case by case. How many yellow post 'em notes are there on this desk with screen names & passwords for various uses ... ?
Polystyle desu 'i am polystyle' in Japanese was both a reaction to some of the early non -music posts here on Dissensus and the positing of a direction my own musik had taken.
There is an idea of a type of music I want to explore in Album form that I do call polystyle.
I definitely saw the word used in descriptions of Alfred Schnittke's work again and again
so copped it for this use.

In gen.
Not at all surprised that some people's screen names get used in RW ,
Boomnoise is quite a ringer , Autonomic too ,
'K- punk' - well, I began waiting for the 'punk' part to manifest !
Cheers all
 
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