My Online Identities Throughout the Time

A Long Journey of Shaping Who I Am URL and IRL

Based on my Twitter thread about my online footprints, which was inspired by my friends’ podcast Whatevski. First episode to be exact. I embedded the episode below for you to check out!

Hi there, friends! Gicch right here!

I got a little anxiety today so I thought why I am not writing something to calm myself? It’s about my identity on the internet, aka my journey to get this name, Suketchiihara.

A Whole New Digital Adventure

I was exposed to the internet for the first time at the very young age of 12. In Indonesia, to have a decent internet at home at that time is considered a luxurious thing at that time so our family depended on Internet Cafes. Dial Up Network can be used but my family made an agreement that we can use that service only on Friday nights, limited to one hour so that we can keep the stability of the phone bill.

Later on, my sis introduced the entire family to a new mobile broadband tech named USB stick modem. Same concept as iPod Shuffle, but for internet.

I made my online debut on Friendster, with fake e-mail address and age, of course, because back then in mid-2000s, the minimal age of someone to sign up for internet services were 17 years old. That stays until the early Facebook Boom in early 2008.

Not until I entered Jr. High that they decided to lower the restrictions to 13, and that’s the first time I finally registered for my own e-mail address.

Early Internet Debut

I debuted my first internet identity perdanizeraving21st on DeviantArt — back when the HQ still stylized the name as deviantART, with CAPS.

The username was cherry-picked from my first crush’s first name. Go ahead and judge me I was a witty kid back then.

I was a noob back then, a 13 year old kid looking for the URL friends who shared the same interests as I am. I make fanarts (and I still do). And later on, I found Rara and Mila from Whatevski back when they still goes by Chocoreaper and AmelStrange.

I also fell in love with Zhang Jingna’s works and that made me change my DeviantArt’s profile path from fanarts to photography.

After that, I crushed on another man I met on DeviantArt. At that time you can’t change your account’s username so I changed my identity on my newly-made Twitter instead, Anggitassen.

This one was also, obviously, cherry-picked from his name.

We fought after a huge misunderstanding before I graduated from Jr. High that caused me to search for a new identity. Don’t worry, we got back together as good friends on Instagram and things went just fine now.

From Sketchihara to Suketchiihara

Jump forward to Sr. High days, I applied for Japan Club in my school and got accepted as a member after the recruitment. Senpaitachi and the same year friends called me Gicchan. From there, the nickname developed into Gicchi, Gicchin, and Gicch, which permanently became my nickname IRL.

The reason I told you this part is because the Gicch also plays an important part.

Mid-2012, I started fangirling over the Japanese Rock band LUNA SEA, and somehow the guitarist/violinist Sugizo ‘chose’ me to make him my biased member among five of them (although later I tried to follow Inoran’s solo works later, but in the end I’m not really into alternative rock after all lol).

From there, I reactivated my Tumblr in order to fangirl over him. So I changed my username to yasvhiroxsvgihara. This is a stylized version of Sugizo’s stated full name on Wikipedia; his real first name was actually Yune instead of Yasuhiro. And according to LUNA SEA’s drummer Shinya, who’s also Sugizo’s BFF since Jr. High, the name Sugizo has been there since they met. It was actually after “Sugi Ikuzo” (=Sugi let’s go!, CMIIW)

After that, I changed my Twitter username to Mechaluna-something; the ‘Mecha’ part was after LUNA SEA’s hit song back on their major debut days which I really like, Mechanical Dance (embedded below), while the ‘Luna’ part is after LUNA SEA and the middle name of Sugizo’s only daughter — who’s now a Harajuku street snap girl working as a store girl for two fashion brands, Vannie and Honey Mi Honey — Artemis.

Months gone by, I have this series of sketchbook called Sketchihara — shortened from Sketchy Sugihara — and later on started to adapt that name as my alias, until I discovered the Japanese pronunciation of it, Suketchiihara ( スケッチィハラ), which finally stays as my permanent internet identity up to this day, and it’s been five years!

But that’s not all, actually.

Gicchira, Hikarushkin, and other names beyond it

National Exam tense triggered my stress so I started to play LINE’s rip-off of Ameba Pigg, LINE PLAY. When they asked me for my nickname, I tried to type Suketchiihara, but they said it was too long, so I gave myself a quick brainstorm and got Sugicchiya, which later on became my nickname on games. Sugicchiya = Sugizo+Gicchin+Yaaaassss LOL.

Those of you who have battled me on IGS Taiwan’s Danz Base — identical to Konami’s DanceEvolution for those who didn’t know — must be familiar of that name back in late 2014 lol

Years after, I altered the name a bit to Chiyazo. Which became my dead e-mail address. It was a follow up to my Tumblr username change to Cryptomeriazo. Any guess of what thing it was named after?

Japanese Cedar! Source http://www2.ca.uky.edu/HLA/Dunwell/CryptomeriajaponicaYoshino_TKPA2012.html

Yep, the binomial name of Japanese Cedar Tree!

The kanji characters of Sugizo’s family name, Sugihara 杉原, literally means Cedarfield. My Japanese friend uses the Cedarfield for her Instagram username.While Cryptomeriazo is a scientific play to Sugizo, am I genius? Hahahahahahahanope.

On my early freshman year, I made a new alias for gaming, Gicchira. Which is randomly generated but if people asked me the origins I always said that it was a fusion between Gicch and Gojira (Godzilla); sounds cute but actually badass

At the end of my freshman year, my native Japanese lecturer gave me an Ateji name 安喜多 (read as Anggita of course), each character has its own meaning:

  • 安 = relax, cheap, low, quiet, rested, contented, peaceful
  • 喜 = rejoice, take pleasure in
  • 多 = many, frequent, much

Such a good choice that my lecturer gave me, too bad she’s gone back to Japan for good now. I’ll live to that legacy she gave me with that ateji name.

Okay, back to online identity.

Early 2017, I made a secondary Instagram account to fulfill my Hikakin-esque urge by posting my edits of his pictures. Hikarushkin421.

The name was inspired by the username of Russian-Japanese model Veronika Nomura, nomurushka. Was actually an accidental fusion of Hikakin, his real first name Hikaru, and his birthday, April 21st (4/21). I’m following the account-naming formula from fellow Japanese Hikakiners who usually added the word YouTuber Love or Hikakin’s birthday.

One last username that is actually off the record is my private account SekarxPermata, an Instagram account which I made private; only for family members and close friends, IRL and URL. This one is my middle and last name, which combined by the immigration officer as my middle name on my e-Passport since I don’t really have last name. I do identify as Anggita Kuswandi on my portfolio but on my birth certificate the last name don’t really exist since most of the Indonesians didn’t believe in the importance of last names (?)

What’s Next?

From perdanizeraving21st to Suketchiihara, I’ve left my digital footprint in the world wide web from those days when I still like to install multiple browsers to try which one is the best to these days when my love for Android and iOS is a tie.

The journey of online identity discovery has brought me from someone who is Internet-Shocked to a person who learned about online privacy and how to determine a hoax. Still learning, but my knowledge grew up each and every day.

With my sister worked as freelance social media specialist who understands how to optimize what you post on social medias, I also learned how to maximize my potential on the world wide web, also internet ethics and etiquette.

I might still far from Hikakin’s demigod-level influence but inside my circle I already considered one so I hope that I’ll be a better person, URL and IRL.

For my fellow netizen, please be a good netizen and use internet wisely, because these days, our presence and attitude online also defines who we are, not only as an individual, but also as a representative of our country.

Kthxbye XOXO

xxx

Gicch

Listen to the other episodes of Whatevski on soundcloud.com/whatevskishow. And don’t forget to follow Rara and Mila — the rad girls behind Whatevski — on Twitter!

If you like my stories, don’t forget to give an applause (aka hit that clap button baby!) Also follow me on Twitter and Instagram…only if you wanna lol

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Anggita S. Kuswandi

Written by

A trilingual chick who studies Japanese Humanities, fangirls through fanarts, snacking mukbang-style and watching YouTube Netflix-style.

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