Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days?

Posted by perlpimp on Sunday July 05, 2020 @10:30PM
from the ask-hn dept.

In 90s we always have referred to each other by nicks, it was elevating sort of personality not assigned to you from birth but realized these days people get confused when you do that even in my nerdy circles.

IMO it is a loss.

( 15 comments | 13 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by Minor49er on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:27AM (#23744685)

They are still the norm on IRC-based chat applications and various forums. If you move away from social media networks, you will see nick usage a whole lot more

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by noodlesUK on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:35AM (#23745016)

I have a couple friends (in their 20s) who have nicks that they use pretty much exclusively for online communication, but it’s increasingly uncommon. I’ve got a unique enough real name that I can use my first name on many services no problem, and if not my first+last is almost globally unique. People with more common real names often find more use for pseudonyms. I see it much more in the infosec community than anywhere else.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by nalllar on Monday July 06, 2020 @10:05AM (#23747946)

What does legally changing your name to your nick count for?

Joking aside, still see nicks commonly. Discord is almost exclusively screennames, IRC's as it ever was. Twitter is a mix of real/screenname, often with the same people having an RL name presence which is less used/more carefully curated.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by txt on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:01PM (#23750742)

I was just chatting with some girl about this..Back in my AOL days you would get hit with the 'YOU=' or 'U=' as soon as you entered a chat. Mostly because we had thousands of aol logins and was always on a different account.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by bzb3 on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:29PM (#23751771)

Can you explain this YOU= thing?

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by txt on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:55PM (#23752029)

user: you= me: -txt Asking for our real nick or handle or screenname whatever you wanna call it....

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by partisan on Tuesday July 07, 2020 @05:22PM (#23764244)

My wife plays video games with a group of players and though they all know each other’s real names by now, they still call each other by their game names. They call me “Mr. YYYY” where YYYY is my wife’s nick name.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by cjbprime on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:06AM (#23744878)

Still common in infosec, gaming, and even just Twitter/Instagram accounts if the owner prefers to show a nick rather than their real name..

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by loktarogar on Sunday July 05, 2020 @11:28PM (#23744414)

Still common in gaming circles. I've met some of my gaming friends many times and they're still their nick to me.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by mod on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:50AM (#23745084)

I have a bunch of my online poker friends from 10 years ago on Facebook, but when I run across their feed, their usernames flash into my head immediately.

When we talk about the others, we only refer to nicknames.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by achairapart on Monday July 06, 2020 @09:03AM (#23747414)

Thanks Facebook for that. They somehow decided that your real life persona should be === to your digital one.

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by maps7 on Monday July 06, 2020 @04:00AM (#23745676)

I miss everything about how 'pseudo anonymous' used to be the norm on the internet

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by _bxg1 on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:59AM (#23744849)

What's a "nick"?

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by 0xdeadb00f on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:11AM (#23745168)

Nickname. "nick" for short; the IRC term is also 'nick'

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Re:Ask HN: Nicks how often are they used these days? by nailer on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:58AM (#23745389)

A handle. An online name seperate from IRL identity.

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