Mortifying Screen Names A Millennial's Rite Of Passage

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Finally in tech, a message - an instant message. For many millennials who grew up in the age of AOL Instant Messenger or AIM, the only thing more embarrassing than the amount of time you spent using it was your screen name. Well, we want to hear them - the more embarrassing, the better. And to kick things off, we've asked a few people for their mortifying monikers.

TAVI GEVINSON: My name is Tavi Gevinson. I'm a writer, actress and editor-in-chief of Rookie. My IM name was pretty normal. It was tavitunes, which is like a nickname that my friends had for me. But the real gem was I was very into Neopets where you have these little digital pets, and myself and a couple boys from my synagogue - we were like, we'll be so much more powerful if we join forces. So our name was jewsrule3.

REMBERT BROWNE: My name is Rembert Browne, and I am a staff writer at grantland.com. So my most embarrassing AIM or A-I-M screen name was remshady. If we go back in a time capsule, this is junior high - elementary school when every boy - at that time especially - was, like, obsessed with Eminem.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY NAME IS")

EMINEM: Hi, my name is - huh? My name is - what? My name is Slim Shady.

BROWNE: And Eminem's nickname was Slim Shady. And I was like, Slim Shady? Rembert - remshady - boom. It was like - it was very early wordplay for me.

MEGAN GANZ: My name is Megan Ganz, and I'm a writer for "Modern Family." Well, my most embarrassing screen name was my first one. It was irony601 - 601 was for my birthday, and irony was because I thought I was the only person in the world who really understood that concept at age 11. And then my - an even more embarrassing screen name I had shortly after that was dawson23, which was not after "Dawson's Creek" but actually after Jack Dawson from "Titanic." You can't ask me to put anything in stone at that age. It's just going to be embarrassing.

SIEGEL: That was "Modern Family" writer Megan Ganz, Grantland writer Rembert Browne and Rookie Mag founder Tavi Gevinson.

Well, now it's your turn. Send us your old screen names with a quick note explaining why you made that terrible, terrible choice. Tweet us @npratc, post to our ALL THINGS CONSIDERED Facebook page, or write an old-fashioned e-mail to alltech@npr.org. Put the words screen name in the subject title. Just don't try to instant message us. We deleted ours a long time ago. And we'll read a few of the screen names on air in the coming weeks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.