THE POSTER FORMERLY KNOWN AS YINYANG

Thursday, July 19, 2012 9:11:36 AM

Hey, all!

I’ve thought about switching usernames for years, but out of laziness haven’t done so. The impetus behind wanting to change my username was to stop appropriating an important philosophical and spiritual concept, from disciplines I don’t practice, originating from people of color (I’m white). Using yinyang as an internet handle may be small in the grand scheme of cultural appropriation, but nevertheless I’m no longer comfortable with it. Also, it’s an account I started when I was a teenager, and I think it’s good to distance myself a little from who I was then.

Well, now I have, and in a move of sheer stupidity have made the change especially permanent. Since I wanted to free up the email (now) associated with this account, I switched the email for yinyang to an older gmail address – the same one I also associated with a dummy account I recently made to test the private messaging system. The fact that we have to log in with our email addresses was definitely not at the forefront of my mind when I made that decision! So, because the dummy account had the email first, it seems I cannot log in as yinyang ever again.

As far as my new name, the meaning behind it is fairly simple. Red because I’m a redhead, and read (pronounced the same as red) because I'm a bookworm. Not the most creative choice, but it's short and comes with a good nickname.