Usernames, Tags, and Identity
How long have you been using your online identity? For me, the story goes back far.
My first online name was created when I was under ten years old. In those days, I would spend my days with a phone set a foot in front of me, set to speakerphone on the line with my cousin. We would play Roblox, leading rebellions in virtual french civil wars, commanding tank battalions, and trying not to touch the floor which was in fact lava. When I finally upgraded from “Guest#????”, I made a decision which would carry on to today.
SpikeViper. The name was short and simple. The start referred to my lego NXT kit which I had just built into a dog which I named Spike. I liked the name, and I was encompassed in programming and building off of that amazing toy. The ‘Viper’ came from somewhere else entirely. I played Football starting at the ripe age of seven, where my father coached and taught me life values like grit and determination (although I was admittedly not cut out for the sport at the time) which made me who I am today. But the team’s name? The Vipers. Now you get it!
This username would go through a few short iterations.
When I was young, I would beg my parents to play Call of Duty with my older brother. It was not that my brother did not want to play — he did — but that violent video games were off the menu at my age. After quite some time, I was finally allowed by my mother to play Call of Duty with my brother. This only applied to zombies — she was fine with me killing monsters, but not characters representing other humans. Actually, I understand the logic now.
Anyways, this is when I had to choose a gamertag. While I already had the ‘SpikeViper’ identity, my brother suggested mixing it up to be less recognizeable on the Xbox. It was good advice — at my age, having raging COD players stalking my profile and harassing me likely would have ruined the fun. As such, my tag was ‘rOblOxViPer41’, or some similar mix of capitalization. Some astute individuals may have even noticed this name in my streams, as it was connected to an email account which I now rarely use, but has archival purpose.
Then there came Minecraft. Moving from Roblox to Minecraft was a swift transition, and considering I bought the game early on. I think it was 1.2.5, when Paulsoaresjr made his ‘How to Survive your first night’ series and ‘Shadow of Israphel’ by the Yogscast inspired me to make my own YouTube channel. By now, my cousin and I had moved to Skype, where the name ‘SpikeViper’ was now set in stone. Of course, in Minecraft, the name matched.
As my YouTube grew from hundreds to thousands of subscribers, the name ‘SpikeViper’ was now used more than my real name, Kobe. I’m just as comfortable and likely to turn my head if either is mentioned. It’s baked into my identity now, a parallel part of my life. Of course, there’s a subtle difference — especially on YouTube, you learn that the name you choose influences how you act. SpikeViper is a character, not just another name. The galactic emperor’s thoughts and opinions do not in fact reflect my own — I very much support democracy and freedom.
Enter Discord, where my community SpookVooper grew and eventually was vanquished by the powers that be (a story for another time). Discord’s username system was unique. You could choose a username, but appended to the end was a tag with four numbers. If you paid for Discord Nitro, you would receive the ability to choose that tag. You see, there could be multiple people named SpikeViper, but alas, I was the only SpikeViper#0001. That system had benefits. On Twitter, I was dismayed to learn my username was already taken, and had to use the fallback ‘SpikeViperYT’. That’s fine — but Discord’s system made it a non-issue, and prevented the toxic username markets that plague other social media websites. It made names shorter, cleaner, and more personal. There was no need to use XxSpikeViperxX, or any of the other silly methods to grab a name that is already used.
This system, however, is being replaced. Perhaps Discord just doesn’t understand the importance of identity online. However, the pronoun selection and added profile customization make this an unlikely reason. The real reason is likely that while the current system is better (in almost every way), there’s one group who just don’t get it: Investors.
It’s not a very well-kept secret that Discord fails to turn profit, and we all know that investors need to see one thing to give handing over cash: Growth. If I were to guess, Discord’s blatant disregard for their community’s protests (their subreddit basically declared mutiny) and follow through of this change are entirely to assure investors that there is more room to grow. Does the username tag system actually make signing up more challenging? Probably not. Does the complexity scare away new users? Maybe a few. But this change signals to me that Discord is nearing a very serious calamity: They see an end to the breakneck pace at which the platform is growing, and they want to do anything they can to at least persuade investors that they are trying to fix this problem.
Seemingly ignored are the millions of Nitro subscribers, who specifically forked over money to claim tags and build an identity on the platform. An identity that is certainly not going to receive a refund for their loss.
It looks like Discord is suffering from discord, both internal and external this time.
