A few days back I happened to be in the center of a heated discussion concerning my name.
Quite unsettling for me as it's the very first discussion on the internet with me in the center of it (mostly I'm what some call a lurker, I don't really say much)
I had registered on the forum of Notch's new game (0x10c, may you wonder) and I posted a small introductory post saying hi and stating who I am...
First reply is made by someone named Comet:
Nice post, but please let me know if your name is intended to be funny or an attack at people who think it is? If it's the prior, change your name. It's offensive, and even though i take it you don't mean it, you should know better.Until now I still don't actually know what the guy meant, I just sent him a PM as a request for more information on his arguments.
And why could I use my name for about 3 years without anyone pointing this out to me?
A short list to all my identities as TheOtherRetard or alike on the internet:
- CounterStrike (and Steam in general)
- LeagueOfLegends
- O-Game
- Minecraft
- CastleStoryOnline
- Youtube
- here
- Wikis
- Weekly Pickaxe
- ... (This is just what I could remember from the top of my head, if you Google me you may find even more...)
First of all: I don't use the word Retard as an offensive word. In my opinion it's used for someone who acts stupid. And I do lots of stupid stuff...
Let me tell you a bit more about myself.
I know what it's like to be called names. I was that one kid that liked to play alone, I was that kid that was the first one of my class to wear glasses (at the age of 7), I was that kid that didn't do or say much during lessons, but still could score above average on most tests...
Per definition I was the one they (the other kids, you know which ones) picked on. Well, me and the fat kid. And when they were picking on the fat kid I never participated, just because it wasn't as fun as they made it look like...
Anyways, this made me have quite an aversion from calling names cursing and stuff, which I still have (if you hear/read me cursing you know I'm agitated...). So when i use the word Retard I mostly just refer to myself...
Oh, I didn't tell about the creation of TheOtherRetard.
It dates a few years back, to when I was playing Counterstrike 1.6 with my (younger) brother. One day we had the idea to name ourselves alike and have some kind of a "clan" feeling. After some suggestions we stopped on "Retard", since we never took ourselves quite seriously and did a lot of stupid stuff while playing the game...
This discussion was followed by a few days of me being away from the computer and when I came back my brother had taken "The_Retard". I quickly settled for "The_Other_Retard" and we went on shooting...
And I liked being the Other Retard. No-one expects much from me, so when I screw up they can say "What a retard!" ending up with me smiling.
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| One letter too long to fit on a sign... |
It never occurred to me people could consider my name as an insult as I clearly name myself a retard, and no one else.
After all that time I'm proud of that name, I'm identifying myself with it and I don't plan on dropping the name because 2 people (of the millions on the internet) want me to change it.
I ended up changing my name as they added "Slurs and insults" to the Forum Name Rules, so I'm now registered as "ThOR"...
I won't fight this decision, there's been enough discussion on it. I'll still use "TheOtherRetard" as a first choice, "ThOR" if Retard is considered insulting and if that's taken I'll think of something similar.
Anyways, thank you for having read all this. If you have any comments, please post them, I'll respond on them as soon as possible.
-ThOR
PS: The story hasn't ended yet, there is a Part 2 of this post.
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