{"id":9236,"date":"2011-07-02T11:16:05","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T18:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=9236"},"modified":"2019-12-23T15:44:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T23:44:58","slug":"my-first-and-only-online-handle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2011\/07\/02\/my-first-and-only-online-handle\/","title":{"rendered":"My First and Only Online Handle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:3012,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.good.is\\\/post\\\/the-eternal-shame-of-your-first-online-handle&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20120831155315\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.good.is:80\\\/post\\\/the-eternal-shame-of-your-first-online-handle\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 09:31:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-25 05:48:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-25 05:48:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:3013,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/kottke.org\\\/11\\\/06\\\/first-online-handles&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260119084537\\\/https:\\\/\\\/kottke.org\\\/11\\\/06\\\/first-online-handles&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 09:31:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-25 05:48:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-25 05:48:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:2527,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.djwudi.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20250925222118\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.djwudi.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-04 15:45:35&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 23:19:33&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-18 19:59:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 15:35:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 11:11:35&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 11:11:35&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:3014,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.alaska.net\\\/~royce&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:3015,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/djwudi\\\/61425308\\\/in\\\/set-1326981&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260306093451\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/djwudi\\\/61425308\\\/in\\\/set-1326981&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/djwudi\\\/61425308\\\/in\\\/set-1326981&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-25 05:48:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-25 05:48:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:3016,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/images.google.com\\\/images?client=safari&amp;rls=en-us&amp;q=woody%20allen&amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;sa=N&amp;hl=en&amp;tab=wi&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/images.google.com\\\/imghp?client=safari&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:2920,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.michaelhanscom.com\\\/gigs&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20170628045324\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.michaelhanscom.com\\\/gigs\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 07:15:52&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 03:09:29&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-17 08:16:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 09:51:59&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-27 10:02:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 22:23:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-04 03:44:04&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-04 03:44:04&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:3017,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.google.com\\\/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=djwudi&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.google.com\\\/webhp?client=safari&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.good.is\/post\/the-eternal-shame-of-your-first-online-handle\" title=\"The Eternal Shame of Your First Online Handle - Technology - GOOD\">The Eternal Shame of Your First Online Handle<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Those of us who came of age alongside AOL must contend with something even more incriminating than a lifelong Google profile: A trail of discarded online aliases, each a distillation of how we viewed ourselves and our place in the world at the time of sign-on. The dawn of the Internet was an open invitation to free ourselves from the names our parents gave us and forge self-made identities divorced from our reputations IRL.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(via <em><a href=\"http:\/\/kottke.org\/11\/06\/first-online-handles\" title=\"kottke.org: First online handles\">kottke<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m actually kind of lucky in this respect. I&#8217;ve only ever used one online handle, and while I&#8217;ve deprecated it a bit these days in favor of my real name, I still actively use it as a login name and occasional identifier. Most anyone who&#8217;s interacted with me online for any appreciable amount of time will recognize my online alias of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.djwudi.com\/\" title=\"djwudi.com\">djwudi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A long time ago (though not in a galaxy far, far away), I was over at my friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alaska.net\/~royce\/\" title=\"Royce Williams' Home Page in Alaska\">Royce<\/a>&#8216;s house when his dad remarked that I &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/djwudi\/61425308\/in\/set-1326981\" title=\"Flickr: djwudi: 4th Grade, Me, Anchorage, AK\">looked like<\/a> a young <a href=\"http:\/\/images.google.com\/images?client=safari&amp;rls=en-us&amp;q=woody%20allen&amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;sa=N&amp;hl=en&amp;tab=wi\" title=\"Google Image Search for 'woody allen'\">Woody Allen<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For a time, this little nugget of trivia was known only to Royce&#8217;s family and my own. At some point during my later high school years, though, a few things (namely, frustration at their being so many other Michaels in my age group, and a teenage-angst fueled desire to be &#8220;someone else&#8221;) led to my deciding to adopt the nickname of &#8220;Woody&#8221; full-time. It started with the yearbook and theater crew (both of which I was very involved with), and began to spread from there.<\/p>\n<p>In the post-graduation years, I used &#8220;Woody&#8221; almost exclusively, in the social world and at my jobs. It wasn&#8217;t long before there were more people who knew me by &#8220;Woody&#8221; than by Michael.<\/p>\n<p>Round about 1992 or so, the Anchorage alternative scene was somewhat in hibernation, especially for those under 21. I talked my way into a DJ spot at one club, then moved on to another, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelhanscom.com\/gigs\/\" title=\"Gig's Music Theatre\">and then another<\/a>, eventually spending around eight years DJing alternative\/goth\/industrial\/retro\/anything-but-pop for the Anchorage scene. My &#8220;DJ name&#8221; was obvious: <strong>DJ Woody<\/strong>, or, depending on how I felt when writing it out on flyers, <strong>DJ W&uuml;di<\/strong>, playing off Royce&#8217;s pseudo-Germanic version of my nickname.<\/p>\n<p>The DJing eventually moved on into past tense rather than present, but as the world of the Internet grew, I soon found that short, unique names were both desirable and valuable, and that smooshing everything together into &#8220;djwudi&#8221; produced a string that, to date and to my knowledge, has not been used by anyone other than myself.<\/p>\n<p>As the years have gone by, I&#8217;ve returned to using my given name in the real world and online, but I still claim <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=djwudi&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8\" title=\"Google search for 'djwudi'\">djwudi<\/a> on any site I sign up for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m actually kind of lucky in this respect. I&#8217;ve only ever used one online handle, and while I&#8217;ve deprecated it a bit these days in favor of my real name, I still actively use it as a login name and occasional identifier. Most anyone who&#8217;s interacted with me online for any appreciable amount of time will recognize my online alias of djwudi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2045,2043,2038],"tags":[223,58,13],"class_list":["post-9236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-djwudi","category-personal","category-tech","tag-djwudi","tag-internet","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}