What's in a username?
Jul. 26th, 2006 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicHappy birthday to ME! And to those of you who have been or will be celebrating this week: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synn, firestorm717, elynross and anyone else I've missed. (I wish the My LJ page would display the previous few flist birthdays in addition to the ones coming up.) To those to whom this applies, thank you for the well-wishing, the smut linkage, the promise of food, and the incidental gifts of commenting and fic previews and beta-ing -- and to think, it's not even noon.
Birthdays are strange things. They want to be singled out as special and somehow important, but it usually feels forced. Last year I bought myself a plane ticket and flew the hell out of here. That was a nice present. This year, though, the annual vacation has come and gone and I'll be spending the day half-asleep at work. It promises to be thoroughly ordinary. Not bad, just ordinary.
Then I realized that there is something that would bring more joy into this momentous Wednesday, and it's a something you can help me with. (It's not a ficlet request; I wouldn't ask that of you, at least not on such short notice.) See, this is my first birthday on LiveJournal, and that's an occasion worth celebrating. I love you all to pieces -- I can't say it enough. And a great gift would be sharin' the love and growing a little closer to all of you. How? By telling me, and one another, about your LJ usernames.
What does your username mean? How did you come up with it? Have you had it so long you hardly think about it? If you've become unhappy with your choice, what would you change it to? Have you changed it before?
Say as much or as little as you want to. You shouldn't feel guilted into participating, but it would be really nice to hear from everyone on this one, even if I've heard some or all of your rationale before (because others probably haven't) and even if you're usually a lurker (because I still see your names on my Profile page and wonder). Even if you're at Lumos and won't read this for another week, dammit.
Bironic is, as you may have guessed, a melding of "Byronic" and "ironic," with the benefit of also having the prefix "bi-."
Why "Byronic"? Thanks to an offhand comment by a wonderful professor, I fell into Romantic studies at school, specifically Byron and modern popular culture. That led to a series of papers that inspired my first submission and subsequent presentation at a fan conference, which led to my second, both of which involved meeting some awesome people and becoming part of the fandom community in which I'd only previously lurked, which in turn led (in part) to the creation of this LJ. Without that original link from Byron to pop culture studies, I don't know whether I'd be here today. I also have Byron-glasses like some people have slash-glasses (well, I have those too). So he needed to be included in the username.
"Ironic" because I wouldn't be myself without sarcasm. It may not come out on LJ so much, what with all the caveats of netiquette and interacting through inflectionless words with people who don't know you, but in person I'm heavily sarcastic. Those of you who know me in RL will attest to this. It's been getting me in trouble lately, actually. I love ironic wit in friends/acquaintances/etc. and in fictional characters (Snape and the entire cast of House spring immediately to mind). I love the dry British humor that puzzles so many of my compatriots. Switching the "y" in "Byronic" to an "i" seemed a perfect choice.
"Bi-" was thus a byproduct. It's not a personal statement but I'm pleased it's there because I'm very interested in (so-called) alternative sexualities and fluid gender identity, things we get to play with all the time in fic and fandom.
The spelling worries me from time to time because I fear that some people aren't getting the pun and are trying to pronounce it "bee-ro-nique" or something.
Your turn.
synn, firestorm717, elynross and anyone else I've missed. (I wish the My LJ page would display the previous few flist birthdays in addition to the ones coming up.) To those to whom this applies, thank you for the well-wishing, the smut linkage, the promise of food, and the incidental gifts of commenting and fic previews and beta-ing -- and to think, it's not even noon.Birthdays are strange things. They want to be singled out as special and somehow important, but it usually feels forced. Last year I bought myself a plane ticket and flew the hell out of here. That was a nice present. This year, though, the annual vacation has come and gone and I'll be spending the day half-asleep at work. It promises to be thoroughly ordinary. Not bad, just ordinary.
Then I realized that there is something that would bring more joy into this momentous Wednesday, and it's a something you can help me with. (It's not a ficlet request; I wouldn't ask that of you, at least not on such short notice.) See, this is my first birthday on LiveJournal, and that's an occasion worth celebrating. I love you all to pieces -- I can't say it enough. And a great gift would be sharin' the love and growing a little closer to all of you. How? By telling me, and one another, about your LJ usernames.
What does your username mean? How did you come up with it? Have you had it so long you hardly think about it? If you've become unhappy with your choice, what would you change it to? Have you changed it before?
Say as much or as little as you want to. You shouldn't feel guilted into participating, but it would be really nice to hear from everyone on this one, even if I've heard some or all of your rationale before (because others probably haven't) and even if you're usually a lurker (because I still see your names on my Profile page and wonder). Even if you're at Lumos and won't read this for another week, dammit.
Bironic is, as you may have guessed, a melding of "Byronic" and "ironic," with the benefit of also having the prefix "bi-."
Why "Byronic"? Thanks to an offhand comment by a wonderful professor, I fell into Romantic studies at school, specifically Byron and modern popular culture. That led to a series of papers that inspired my first submission and subsequent presentation at a fan conference, which led to my second, both of which involved meeting some awesome people and becoming part of the fandom community in which I'd only previously lurked, which in turn led (in part) to the creation of this LJ. Without that original link from Byron to pop culture studies, I don't know whether I'd be here today. I also have Byron-glasses like some people have slash-glasses (well, I have those too). So he needed to be included in the username.
"Ironic" because I wouldn't be myself without sarcasm. It may not come out on LJ so much, what with all the caveats of netiquette and interacting through inflectionless words with people who don't know you, but in person I'm heavily sarcastic. Those of you who know me in RL will attest to this. It's been getting me in trouble lately, actually. I love ironic wit in friends/acquaintances/etc. and in fictional characters (Snape and the entire cast of House spring immediately to mind). I love the dry British humor that puzzles so many of my compatriots. Switching the "y" in "Byronic" to an "i" seemed a perfect choice.
"Bi-" was thus a byproduct. It's not a personal statement but I'm pleased it's there because I'm very interested in (so-called) alternative sexualities and fluid gender identity, things we get to play with all the time in fic and fandom.
The spelling worries me from time to time because I fear that some people aren't getting the pun and are trying to pronounce it "bee-ro-nique" or something.
Your turn.
no subject
Date: Jul. 27th, 2006 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 29th, 2006 02:12 pm (UTC)It's really amazing how far computer technology has come in the last 10-20 years, and comparing games from then to those around now illustrates that. (She said, profoundly, still waking up.) Haven't played that many myself but when I think back on what we had when we were kids and what's around now, it's... well, it's kind of funny what we used to think was "advanced."