What's in a Name (or Nym)?

By

Succubyss

Welcome to the Internet, where you can be anyone you want to be.  Or at least call yourself anything you want to.  It can be a beautiful thing, or it can get downright ridiculous. 

You very rarely see anyone online using his or her “real” name.  I mean, if you wanted to be Mary Jones from 123 Main Street, why bother using the Internet?  On the Internet you can be ANYONE.  And given my experience, no one wants to be themselves in their “real” life, so why do it where no one will know the difference?  Human beings want to be bigger and badder than they were born to be.  That’s why we have breast enhancements, penis enlargements and hair spray.  BIGGER is better and there is a place for the biggest you that you can be, right here!  It’s only right that the name you use reflects that big, incredible YOU! 

Let’s say you ARE Mary Jones and the wildest thing you do is needlepoint bible sayings onto pillows.    You signed up with your Internet service provider and were given a default screen name of MaryJones123.   So you get on the ‘net and you browse around and you find a group titled, “Bible Needle Pointers”.  That has you written all over it.  But you can’t read all the interesting information until you register.  You’ve read all the warnings about protecting your identity online, so when asked to choose a user name, you’re not going to use Mary Jones.  You’re going to pick a screen name or a pseudonym, “nym” for short.  All of a sudden, sweet, needle-pointing Mary Jones becomes SmokinHotThreads or LuvMyPillows.

Currently, my two absolute favorite nyms are, KillDieDead and CrouchingStonerHiddenBong.  Tell me you don’t want to know the story behind those?  I could write novels based on those names alone.   

KillDieDead could be an internet serial killer who picks his victims out in a chat room based on their musical tastes.  He’d be a diehard fanatic of thrash metal who wants to rid the world of 80’s techno fans.  KillDieDead lures Flock4Me, a hapless fan of A Flock Of Seagulls to their reunion show on VH1, and then proceeds to take them back to his lair, which is a deserted storefront on Melrose.  After being tied and taped, Flock4Me is tortured with endless loops of Pantera and Decay.  Our killer dumps bucket after bucket of cold water over him to wash the hairspray from his sculpted ‘do.  The victim is then branded with a trademark upside-down cross on the forehead before being strangled with a frayed Black Diamond guitar string.  KillDieDead disposes of the body by dumping it in front of The Electric Lotus Club in Hollywood, to serve as a warning to others who might dare say in chat, “So, who was that Dimebag guy anyway?”

CrouchingStonerHiddenBong is a hippie/martial artist superhero, trying to save the downtrodden and helpless victims of a Midwestern ghetto.  Under the guise of mild-mannered social worker, she sports tie-dye t-shirts beneath her navy-blue business suits.  With the smell of patchouli and sinsemilla wafting around her, she fights to protect the young and innocent survivors of urban warfare.  Hearing a child scream in the night, she takes a quick toke off her one-hitter and sheds her blazer, revealing a Grateful Dead Tour shirt.  At the end of a dark alley she sees a frail child being carried off by a greasy, potential child molester.  Her lightening fast round-about and chop to the throat paralyzes the street scum as she whisks the small boy back to his poor, yet well-intentioned parents, safe and sound. 

Such is the power of a good nym. 

Boring, unimaginative nyms, such as these; Juli737, Sweeti569, Qdl121269 or any other  random assortment of letters and numbers should be deleted before they see the light of day.  Also, any nym with the word “bitch” in any spell form, the numbers “69” or the combination of “4U2” have zero interest for me.

There are also problematic nyms.  While the actual nyms themselves aren’t the problem, the moronic people behind them ARE.  These people are the sociopaths of the Internet. They are constantly changing their nym to stalk, harass and deceive.  Without social skills or education, they usually don’t have jobs and probably don’t own their own computer.  Using public computers in libraries or business centers, their time is spent trying to make other people’s lives miserable, whilst thinking they are being clever, witty or entertaining.  Far from that, they are merely annoying and are constantly being booted and banned all over the Internet.  Instead of cleaning up their act or trying to find a place they might belong, they just change their nym and repeatedly harass the same people over and over, for no good reason.  These people are called “trolls” or “tards”.  Their nyms are as meaningless as their shallow, little lives.

And now, the story of MY nym, which I’ve had since 1996.   It came about as a joke.  A friend and I were trolling some hypocritical AOL Christian chat room.  Yea, I know, how immature – whatever.  I don’t even know what my screen name was at the time, but I needed a new one to horrify and irritate.  My trolling friend was known as “LordOfPorn”.  This is a perfect example of how nyms have to reflect the biggest and baddest of whatever you are trying to project.  He didn’t pick, “SomePornWhenImDrunk” or “SoftPornonHBO”.  He was the goddamn LORDOFPORN!  In keeping with the mission at hand, I scrolled some various demons names and thought a succubus would be the perfect companion for the new lord.  As happens when creating a nym, the proper spelling was already taken, so I combined succubus with abyss and got my brand-new, trolling nym, Succubyss.  Ta-da!  In keeping with AOL tradition at the time, I created an appropriate, wacky profile:

Location:wherever you are, your light feeds my dark heart

Marital Status:     your soul wed to my blood

Hobbies & Interests :your essence fills my void; your psychic scream soothes

  my pain. Hot, liquid passion to warm my cold skin

Favorites Gadgets:   whatever it takes to reach into your mind, your body, your

  being

Occupation: seeker of life, bearer of pain, to offer you pleasure you

  have yet to gain

Personal Quote:"surrender to the dark desire, give you to me, let life fade

and blood flow free"

After an ex-boyfriend told me I sucked the soul out of him in more ways than one, I thought it suited me, so Succubyss I’ve stayed. 

There you have it.  Nyms can be fun, boring or a pain in the ass.  So be careful out there in the scary land of Internet nyms.

Remember, “Sweetlilthing4U”, might really be “BigHairySheMale”.

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