Reinventing Online Personas

[retrogradenova]

I've been going by retrogradenova since 2004. I've used it for almost everything. When i started going to conventions in 2009 occassionally someone would come up to me and say "you know your name means black hole". It was frustrating as that had not been my intent, but rather a simple mistake on my part.

Explaining that mistake became obnoxious. It seemed to come up more and more as i tried to sell my art. I'm not a blackhole. In 2012 i decided to change this identiy that i use for everything from online video games to my art. I wanted something personal, something that said something about myself. But now in 2016 i still go by retrogradenova since i have never found the right name. I've never really been good at finding ways to represent myself, so it's not really suprising to me.

Has anyone else gone through a drastic change to their online identity? Or even a simple one?

[Snapdragon]

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but I find black holes fascinating!! Scientifically, there's so much we don't know about them, and so much speculative fiction is written about what might happen if one were to go through a black hole! So in that sense, maybe you could "reclaim" the name for yourself, in a way? Black holes aren't a negative thing, they're an exciting scientific phenomenon!! ^_^

That said, I am soooo not the right person to offer help for picking a name! I always meant to choose a persona pony for myself, so I could draw art of her and make a custom... and I could never decide on just one design (much less a name) that I liked best! So I'm still here, persona-less a decade later!! Oops!! I should really get one ...

[Lore-Lei]

My two biggest changes when it came to my 'masks' were the change from X-Melancholy-X to The Syreth Clan, and the expansion of the ponyverse and similar things with what you see now as Lore-Lei.

The origin of the first one is simple, my online persona was called Melancholy, based off the my only trait I had at that time. It was the best word to describe me back then to be honest. Melancholy (the character) also had a counterpart named Melody, who - as you'd assume - was more cheerful and lighthearted. They were two completely separate characters at first.

As I went with time, I grew, and so did my little personal world which I named 'The Sector'. With time, I realized I'm more than just a simple fancy word, I'm capable of feeling all sorts of different things and have all sorts of strange interest. I realized this when creating my other characters, each being based on one of these traits, each having a bit of myself in them.

Aftef time, I fused Melancholy and Melody together into a single character: Mel, and now, they had a lot of friend characters too, whom I all collectively refered to as the Syreth Clan. I only realized it's time for a name change when I suddenly found myself given the oportunity, but I didn't hesitate. 'X-Melancholy-X' was too edgy, and just not me anymore, only a mere fragment of what I am.

It's the origin of the first one.

---

The second one was different. At first, I was just simply slapping the design of Mel on a pony, and named my ponysona Melodious Silence, later on simply Silence. I still didn't make her a completely seperate username for pony related things, though. That went on for a long, looong time. So long that I learned how to write fanfiction, became actually good at writing fanfiction, and realized Silence was a HUGE mistake, erasing her.

For a while after that, I didn't feel like I need a seperate 'mask' for pony content, until a friend of mine behind one of Rarity - who ran by the same name - made me think. They nicknamed me 'Aggy' from our roleplays, and that kind of made something click. For a while, I went with it, and used the alias of Agate, slowly seperating the normal and pony related names. But that wasn't right, since Agate had a vastly different, hardly relatable character than I did (which was the reason I created her in the first place), I needed a new 'me'.

The idea of Lore-Lei came after slowly building up my own pony universes due to my recent disappointment of where the show was going breaking me. I came up with so many characteres by that point, I had no trouble with creating a 'shell', a design for a ponyself, I looked into myself and choose the things that I thought and people have said defined me the most: creativity, mysticism, a fascination with eastern culture, spirituality, and an affinity with untapped potential of things.

From this I forged Lore-Lei, and from Lore-Lei I forged Friendship Fables.

---

This post ended up really, really long, so I'll try to cut the summary short.

I always thought of this ordeal as a 'Masquerade'. Settle for what you want to build your new 'mask' for: an all-purpose personality or a more specific one. Decide to what degree you're going to use the mask, if you're going to have a full-fledged lore around it, or just make it no more than a second name. Think what sort of things you can relate to when it comes to the topic you create the 'mask' for.
Look deep into yourself and ask questions, then from the answers, create something that will be your new 'mask'. Because, like in real life, a good mask needs a theme and complexity. Also, don't be afraid to have multiple of these 'masks' for different 'occasions'. I do, and it's a lot of fun.

[Miniature Sheep]

I feel you on that, coming up with a fresh online persona is really difficult, especially when you're trying to think of something that is truly personal. There's nothing wrong with trying out a few things to see what fits, it can even be pretty fun to try out different ideas. I've reworked my persona countless times over the years based on different things that really excited me at the time but it's kind of levelled out recently, so the way I present myself personality and aesthetic-wise is sorted at the moment; doesn't stop me from having a different username on every website though!

[True]

Personally, when I started the internet waay back when free AOL disks were still infecting every business counter top... I was obsessed with vampires (still am, the proper ones at least xD) so I made the name "truevampiress" which I used for a VERY long time, It was my name here as well when I signed up.
Like you, I also grew out of it, the name seemed childish now that im nearly 30, and I'm also trying to focus on creating a professional image for myself so I can sell art/things.

For the arena I simply had the Vampiress, part chopped off the name. I also liked the sound of "True" as I have spent a lot of time growing as a person, discovering new things and old things about myself, and staying True to my feelings is one of the things I strive for every day.

For the rest of the internet I came up with the name Madoni, It doesn't mean anything, it isn't connected to my name in anyway, it was simply a word i thought of one day and liked. I do this thing when I cant sleep where ill start with the first letter of the alphabet and try to mash random letters/sounds to it, making up weird sounding words or sounds lol.  Later on when I googled Madoni, I found its a somewhat common surname and its used in other places, but the point was, I thought it sounded nice in my head before i knew that it was a word. xD 

[melodys_angel]

Ive had this username since ~2000.  It may be a bit odd or childish but it stuck.  I don't think I could change it for anything right now

Black holes are actually very interesting.  If it bothers you, you can always warp the meaning to play light on the things you like

[kaoskat]

I've been kaoskat since 1997 so changing it would be weird. I think retrogradenova is a rather nice name. If it feels right to you, you shouldn't change it just because others don't get it.

[dragonfly]

I have a few different screen names for things like apps I sign up for, etc, but this is my most / only active forum community and I've been here so long, why change? It did take a long time to come up with a suitable name for my Etsy store that reflects my personality and products, though, so I feel you there.

I guess try a few out and see what you like? Google screen name generator; it might give you some ideas. Clearly you feel that retrogradenova doesn't "fit" right anymore. I think it's a rad name though. What are different words that can be used for what you thought it meant, or what the name means to you?

[Koudoawaia]

I like the name retrogradenova.  I have gone through a major change in online personas before. From 2002 until sometime in 2006, I signed up as KristynLioness about everywhere because she was my main persona then. My FA account is stuck as KristynLioness in fact because I joined in December 2005 when I was still using her. In the early half of 2006, my main persona changed to a kitsune named Koudoawaia. That is the name I use everywhere now. Koudo is no longer a kitsune. She transitioned to being a dragon sometime in 2007 and for several years was a dragoness with fox-like markings since she was a kitsune first. When she first became a dragon, she was a fire-breathing earth dragon with the usual bat-like wings which later changed to feathered, then later a lightning-breathing storm dragon but kept the fox markings and black heart on each shoulder which was always a carry-on from KL who first sported the black hearts. In 2012, I changed Koudo's design to a black and white tuxedo pattern with a gold heart on each shoulder instead of the black hearts and that I believe is the final stop as far as any tweaks or changes go.

[Terra]

Maybe consider something similar sounding with a different meaning - RetroNova perhaps? Retro- BABE - Nova? Too silly?
There's of course nothing wrong with reinventing your name entirely!

[retrogradenova]

Thank you to everyone for sharing their stories and for the compliments about my user name. I have to agree, I think black holes are fascinating. Though I just don't know if it's suitable for a a username when my primary use of it is for art. While I still liek it as a name and will probably continue to use it for gaming, I feel like it might just sound a little too negative for a professional name.

I started looking at changing my name when I was taking a marketing class in college. The professor made several points when talking about branding. For example: shorter names are easier to remember and therefore can be catchier, if you're using a name that isn't your birth name people will ask the story behind it, that story can color their impression of you and your art especially if it is a boring one. And I noticed all those points kinda touched on the name I was using.

I noticed some of my favorite artists had short names, and even though there were artists that I liked with longer names, I could never remember them. An example of an artist would be Rukis, I love her work and her name is just easy to remember.

I have explored other names but none ever feel right. I had a fascination with drawing blue and white tigers for a while, I called them moon tigers. I tried coming up with something relating to moons, felines, any combination I could think of besides just Moontiger, because it is fairly boring (and it was already taken on FA and weasyl).

I figure I should decide on a name before I go playing with my persona. I've always had a white tiger with blue stripes as my fursona on FA. For a pony persona I thought it'd reflect that as a white unicorn with blue zebra stripes, but coming up with a symbol is hard. Of course sometimes I consider doing away with the white and blue all together.  Branding yourself is really hard 

[Stormness_1]

I'm really bad with usernames, but as for your pony persona, it doesn't need to have a symbol at all, especially if it has a cool theme like zebra stripes, I think it would distract from your persona and make her to much like a colourswirl pony.. If you want a white unicorn with blue stripes and nothing else that's up to you. I personally love the idea of a pony not needing to define itself with a symbol, my ponysona is a TAF pony, because of the same reasoning.. why do I just have to have a rump symbol? Why can't I just have whatever I like? It's not traditional, but who says that's important? It's a character that reflects you.

And to me that's the same as your username, it's about what expresses you. I personally remember names I connect with on some level, and a black hole, that's a concept I can connect with. And I remember syllables, so re-tro-grade-no-va would be memorable, because it has a rhythm, and is long enough to be memorable, because 5 syllables is a lot, but it still rolls off the tongue easily.

[Taxel]

I don't have much to say about the online personas part, but I feel you on the difficulty of branding! My boyfriend's dad helped me come up with an excellent name for my business - short, catchy, allows me to expand - but the other aspects are still such a pain.

As for pony personas without symbols, I'm another vote of go for it! My ponysona is a pegasus with speckles on her rump and wings (plus a few other small wing markings). She used to have a symbol but I kind of got bored of it. Real people are very hard to sum up in a small, simple symbol that's easy for artists to draw. If I ever get a custom of her I might get a TAF style symbol on the NDS that incorporates all the stuff I love, but when it comes to drawn sort of art I prefer her to be simple.

[Harmonie]

I don't think that there is anything wrong with your username, but if you don't like it that's that.

I'm pretty bad with sticking with usernames. Especially since a decade plus ago when I got really into music I started making usernames based on my favorite instruments/instruments I played. I have been through so many! Although I went through a bit of a shock earlier this year, when I switched from the bassoon to oboe. The bassoon was my main instrument for nearly a decade. I have so many usernames that I can't change based on it (my PSN name lol) and signature banners, too. >.<

Finally I arrived with 'Harmonie', which is an old European term that refers to an ensemble of woodwind and brass instruments. Seems perfect for me, but it isn't always available since people love to use it as an alternative spelling for 'harmony'. Darn. =/

I don't know if me changing usernames so many times over switching instruments would reinvent me or just make people think I'm crazy. 

[ghouldilocks]

I tend to change usernames online once in a while, but not necessarily because my previous names no longer "fit." I just like to freshen things up a bit after a while, lol.

I used to use some variation of soma.holiday on everything (particularly gaming), as a Brave New World reference - people in that book use a drug called "soma" to temporarily escape from reality, and I similarly use certain things online to escape from reality - gaming in particular, lol. So it fit. I still use it a lot, but not for everything anymore.

I also occasionally use ghouldilocks, which started as the name of my undead warlock alt on WoW. I enjoy puns, and when I couldn't think of a name I wanted when I started online dating again, I just went with that, lol. I now use it a lot more frequently, as it's really grown on me.

The other name I use more frequently now, especially on social media, is my username here: it's just a cat-themed play on my actual first and last names, so I feel that if I try to build any kind of brand around my name, such as with writing or if I ever go through with trying to get into voice acting, then at least it's something I won't feel the need to change.