Sunday, October 28, 2012

Not Another Social Distraction!

So for a new assignment out of my Advanced New Media class I had to obtain a twitter account, either using a preexisting one or to make one. As I lack a twitter account and have never had any interests in one, I had to make an account for the asinment. (which includes righting this blog entry)

Registration…
So I made my way to the site, bumping threw Google for a correct url. (funny I misspelled twitter my first try) and noticed on the very first line for the registration a request for a name, specifically first and last. Unlike most from my generation I entered the net in the days where giving out your real name was considered as bad as inviting a rapist in to your house. Because of this my first instinct was “F**K no I’m not giving you that” and promptly closed the tab. However because this is a mandatory thing I quickly found myself back on the account registration page and staring down the name requirement. This time I defaulted to my primary false identity, which will not be named, and filled out the forum only to be greeted with a “this username is already taken!” message when I entered in what once was my unique gamer handle.

I find it quite depressing the number of people that are now running about the net using my screen name, thanks to them I’ve had to use generalizations for my Minecraft account, several other services, and now possibly twitter. The worst part of all, the handle that I wanted was consumed by an account that has been in active for 3 years… If you can’t tell, I’m not huge on people, especially ones who take what was once my unique usernames. I had an identity behind them, if you saw that name, you knew who to expect. Now it could be any number of bosos on the net.
Ultimately after an elongated period of fiddling with what handles it did permit and how it registered them (caps, no caps) I originally decided to just play it easy and go with my 2nd most prominent gamer tag (3rd most used username) Aostai. Officially that name has a ser. section, Iwef, however I have been fazing it out as it is both illogical and unnecessary. However I generally shy away from using this one due to its irregularity between spelling and pronunciation due to its origin in Star Wars. (a-stoya) after much thought regarding this I decided to go with the surname of my primary gamer tag Pasow Atheba.

The decision to finally move to something I’ve never used before is twofold. I’ve been looking for a while now for a new online identity as my old ones have gained some unnecessary stigmas while still giving some homage to my past. Atheba has sense its creation become the dominant last name for all new characters I’ve made in games and is one of the more phonetically spelled of them. I really wish I knew where I was going with building an identity, I’m not huge on letting everyone know the one given to me, and I’m not huge on the ones I’ve used thought my life. I was fine with just rolling with old ones till they started vanishing from availability.

After registration…
Why the hell do I have to follow 5 people the moment I make the account?

*enter minor amounts of rage*

Decided to see if I could just get back to regular twitter by loading another page and surly enough I was back to a normal service. What I’ve been questioning the entire time I’ve made this account was what was available to change after creation. I was quite paranoid that I would be locked in to everything once creating the account; however to my delight I can change everything, the Name, the username/handle. While I was there I also uploaded one of the avatars I’ve been using lately around the net. My next step was to disable 90% of its social functions, took out nearly all of its email notifications, shut down its privacy violation system of tailoring twitter based on sites I visit (hoping it turns off the cookie tracking) and forced on a few features that really should be on by default.
Lastly before posting this blog entry, I tweeted that the account had been created, a little tradition of every account I’ve ever made.

@Athebaart

2 comments:

  1. Couldn't log on to blogspot Sunday, so here is my blurb. I find it to be interesting that you have so much to say about making the twitter account. I enjoy your reactions and thoughts. It's crazy knowing that so many people use twitter and how people do think of the same name, making it difficult for others. Overall, I say I still don't understand the point of the hash tag (I think that is what it is called), unless everyone knows about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. one thing that i enjoy imagining is if the real world ran on the same unique name system as most websites too. i would suspect people's names would quickly start to look like Xbox Live gamer tags. all distorted and misspelled just to get something that isn't taken.

      #tag is simply a universal marker for usage. they are handy as a way to quickly find similar things (such as #starwars) however their usage is personally a little pointless and at times confusing. #ihavenoideawhatwentwrong

      Delete