I’m fortunate enough to have come up in the Internet generation. I grew up in chat rooms, forums and made lifelong friends that I have never met in person. And coming up in the Internet of things; I like many of my contemporaries, I have a ton of screen names. It’s always a little weird introducing myself as a stage or screen name. I have plenty of people who never call me by my human name. So I wanted to go over a few of the names I use and what they mean and by proxy, what they mean to me.
AichiYume
This is my panelist/cosplay name! I also used to use it on deviantArt when I was there…I’m not there anymore. I’m a little too old for that, aren’t I? AichiYume is a combining of several screen names I’ve used across the internet for years. AichiYume is like the manic pixie dream girl of the anime world. Opinionated, knowledgeable and funny (most of the time). It’s the name you’ll see me use as a panelist and as a person who posts videos and such. You can use any combination of the name: Aichi, Aichi Yume, or Yume; all of those are acceptable and I’ll answer to them. Why did I choose the name AichiYume? Because I’m melodramatic and an otaku.
Nai
Back in the early days of the Internet, I made my home on a little site called Gendou. Gendou was a site for anime music and it also featured a chat room. Nai is the name of a character I made forever ago to a series that will never see the light of day because I wrote it when I was 15 and angsty. Gendou became my home. Gendou was my family when my own failed me. My friends when I needed them and I have made lifelong friends all from a chat room online. If you see me on stage with Carlos (a friend from Gendou that I’ve met now in real life) he’ll still call me Nai sometimes.
RawrAmandaRawr
That’s my Twitter name! So I made a Twitter account several years ago for school. I essentially had to have one for my journalism class. (Yes, I was one of the last StMU students to take print journalism rather than digital communications). I never thought I’d stick with it after college but over 17,000 Tweets later…clearly, I’m in it to win it.
Amanda.Actually
The name I use on this blog! This is the more human version of me. Still a comic book, anime/manga fan but a little more cultured. A little more mature. A little more well-rounded as a person. It is, as it says, The Actual Amanda. Amanda’s my human name. The one I was given as a child. The one I refuse to have shortened to “Mandy”. Amanda is me. I am Amanda. I’m more personal on my blog, my open, more willing to talk about things that aren’t just comic books.
This post is short and different, isn’t it? I’ve never really felt like any one side of the names I use are characters. They’re all just a part of me. They’re all valid. They’re all the whole that makes up the wonderfully complex person I am today. But it does a bit go in line with the last post about persona, censorship and which Amanda is the real Amanda.
If you ever hear me go by a different name, I hope this guide is helpful!
Amanda.Actually 