Out there
on October 22, 2012 at 12:01 amAlex is based on one of my pre-college Internet friends whose name was also Alex. The nickname “Dark Power 451” was a wholly new creation, however. It was a combination of “Dark Power,” which sounds like the sort of ridiculous overblown name either an online rando or a Rob Liefeld character would have, plus “451,” which was a veiled reference to “Fahrenheit 451,” which gives the name a fighting-the-power conspiratorial air. What I’m getting at is that I wanted a really Internetty-sounding nickname.
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Out there, living in the sun…
1996. It fits!
Out there, there’s a world outside of Yonkers…
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby, there’s a slick town, Barnaby…
Indeed, fits fine. I had a lot of friends on EQ in the late 90’s that fit that profile perfectly.
“So, wanna be friends?”
“Dunno. Let me mullet over.”
(I apologise for NOTHING)
Lack of apology accepted.
Also, I enjoy the implication that at one point you thought people who spend vast amounts on the time on the internet were weird.
In his defense, there were only like 8 things to do online during that time period. and 3 of those are porn.
True, true.
Three? Oh, right, both hands at once. Four if you’re stretchy enough.
Aren’t we?
You know, after seeing some of the weird usernames in my time on the internet, something like Dark Power 451 wouldn’t surprise me.
But usernames in the style like his was pretty common in the 90s and still reasonably common today.
Also, I can’t help but say this, after looking at Willis’ Twitter feed:
“Everything the light fails to touch is my kingdom.”
When I first read through Roomies I thought Alex was a girl…I mean…It wasn’t until ItsWalky that I realized he was a dude.
Thank god! I’m not the only one!
Of course you’re not! Why do you think he got a goatee?
I was fifty fifty on that, for some of his behaviors later didn’t seem too feminine.
I too thought Alex was female for a very long time. (You don’t need to be feminine to be female – I’m sure not!)
According to the Roomies! book, this is why he later got a goatee. “Then everyone thought he was a girl with facial hair.”
For some reason, I’ve always imagined him with the voice of a female chain smoker. This makes him vaguely unsettling.
Nothing like a Rob Liefeld insult to make my day.
It was probably unintentional at the time, but the abbreviation “DP” does allot more to make it an “Internet name” than a Fahrenheit 451 reference.
Wonder what that says about my own handle, then…
Which has been around approximately as long, and replaced something that I thought was funny at the time but was probably just kinda offensive to most people.
“Ridiculous overblown name” What, like CallistanRogue or something?
Originally posted:
October 15, 1997