Many Youtubers have used aliases since the start  of Youtube and have worked to keep their name out of the mix but what does that do? In reality they most likely don’t hide their name from other people so why would anyone hide it for a public service?

In my videos so far I haven’t thought about it much but have gone by Joe much more than Al or Alleriodrone though all 3 lend to the same character in minecraft, of course there are many people named Joe playing Minecrafft while there is only one Alleriodrone playing and my username is in use on Xbox, email, and now the Ouya (if it ever arrives). So I have to ask myself, is a username really an individuals identity or should we still go by the names our parents gave us even in a place where there are thousands of Joe’s and probably a hundred with the surname Abbey. One example of my name being taken is twitter where I thought that there would be no way that @joeabbey would be taken but it was so I went with @yearoflinux then changed to @thefourtharrow and neither really describes me but it describes my blogs and hobbies. (By the way I recently changed my Twitter again, surprisingly @Alleriodrone was not taken)

The only identity a person has is the identity they know themselves by and the identity that they claim to own. A name can be a brand, an attitude, or even something as basic as your favorite food everything one uses to identify oneself is leading to a name but whether it’s your username or your given name it should be your own and it should be your identity and noone elses.