Online names and identity crises

Okay so I’ve had this talk with a couple people and I wanted to see if anyone else has had something like this happen.

So, for like 6-7 years now I’ve gone by Klutch, right? When I made the name change from certain.. inappropriate rodent names, i wanted something that sounded somewhat like a name, while also having some relation to gaming, and that seemed to fit. And it did fit, for a long time. Since I played video games mostly as a hobby/casual kind of thing, having people periodically call me Klutch never really did any harm.

Fast forward to 2020. School is online, which means I’m not actually participating in classes, ie; nobody is calling on my real name. I’m living at home, stopped working for a month bc I contracted covid, so while I’m at home, basically nobody is calling my real name bc if they wanna talk to me, they’ll just come into my room or something. I start working again, so I do have people calling my real name a lot, however, by that point in the year, I had begun playing on Gmod A LOT more, and I was probably spending more time on gmod that at work (fuck it, it was the middle of the summer, who cares). During that time on Gmod, I’m staffing, constantly in discord with people calling me klutch, and by that point, I was being called Klutch more than I was being called Elijah. After about 4 months of staffing, that kind of got to me in a weird way.

See, while I’m online, I’m basically the same person I am IRL (though maybe slightly less energetic irl, but personality isnt really “fake” at all). But, constantly going by two names, like on a daily basis, and in the case in that point in time being called Klutch more kind of sat strangely, as if this “Klutch” was a character or something. But Klutch isn’t a character, he’s me? But I’m not really klutch, I’m Elijah, right? Well yes, but I’m also klutch? So that starts spinning in my head a lot to the point where I’m like... who the fuck am I??? Like, full on identity crisis where if someone IRL were to call me Klutch, I’d fully respond and probably not even think about it until after the conversation.

so I decided to change things up to see if that helps with this identity crisis a bit, but then I got to thinking... well fuck, now I’m gonna have everyone who’s known me forever calling me Klutch, newer people who don’t know me calling me wojack, and people irl calling me Elijah, so maybe this problems gonna get worse? Fuck man idk the internet is weird.

has anyone else experienced anything like this? I really hope I’m not the only one bc otherwise I probably just sound fried off my ass or something.

(also please excuse the constant past/present tense changes, it’s almost 5 in the morning and my brain no worky)

 

When I met @RyanHymenman IRL he referred to me as "Cole" not "Indy"
and uh
I referred to Ryan as Ryan

 

I kinda had the same problem at one point, maybe not so severe. I was disconnected from my family (because I was sick) and called by my in-game alias, so it kinda messed me up when I got better. This was a while ago, so I'm good now, though. I hope you're okay

 

I've always had a similar problem. Sometimes I actually refer to myself (in my head, never aloud irl) as Tragic. It doesn't really go away - but you start to accept it. I hear Tragic maybe 25 times per day on average. I hear my real name maybe... 5?
If you've been Klutch long enough to really have it that ingrained into you, odds are it'll take a long time to go away. Maybe a year or so? At which point you'll either just be Elijah, with the username Wojak, or Elijah AKA Wojak. Only time will tell.

My brain also no worky so sorry if this doesn't help and/or doesn't make sense. I tried my best lol.

 

Yeah I've felt the same way for a while lol. It feels kind of off having everyone refer to me as Mole or Moleman aside from my immediate family. I usually go by my middle name, Adam, in school and stuff so if y'all want to call me that I'm cool with it

 

Sometimes in my head I'll refer to myself as waffle. For a few minutes I'll just tell myself in my head ITS [REDACTED] NOT WAFFLE so I don't make the mistake in real life. Its kinda odd getting used to everyone calling you a name that's not YOUR name. Especially when you're dumb enough to make your name a food.

 

I'm already confused about a few things ( i went by Nicole for a week to test something out ) I guess go by what you feel is right

 

when someone talks about Excel spreadsheets , it confuses me a little

 

This is why i keep it simple and go by my real name, i'm always used to it and it feels nice to me

 

Just be like

Elitch or something idk

Can always just use an irl nickname too then it's not that awkward if someone does call you it (better than "HEY IS THAT KLUTCH I SEE AT MY LOCAL GROCERY????"

 

Ok so my takeaway from everyone’s responses so far is that I’m just fucking fried LMAO

 

I've been LoviSa for 10+ years and i feel like she is a different person than my actual self, even though there is no difference.
Its almost like dissociation of my own identity at times, but i think it would be super weird if anyone irl called me LoviSa.

I like to try and keep my real identity somewhat hidden to most (apart from my face) due to some past experiences, which i think leads me my brain wanting to separate the "two" names/people/characters whatever you wanna call it.
I think that because online we can almost say anything, but in real life we have more consequences for our words, it subconsciously separates the two identities in our brain.

I think a big part of it is that I dont know any people here in real life, so i feel they dont really know me for real, they know my personality/traits(LoviSa) ect but they dont know my physical self(real name).
In real life we have jobs and school and family's and pets and hobbies and belongings, but in game/online all we have are our personalities, so it seems that a whole part of our being is not "seen" by the people you interact with everyday online, and it never will be until you combine to two "people".

Apart from mentally stable people y'all just chillin with online and irl names no worries lol.

 

So the two most fried people here have the same issue hmmmmm

 

I've been using versions of "Cloud" for a while on the internet. I would be weirded out if someone called me "Cloudy" in public. The name "Cloud" itself came from the time I was a part of the brony fandom. My personal life is heavily disconnected from what I do on the internet.