What’s in a name?

smileykt.

If you google it you’ll find it everywhere.

But you’ll notice that down near the bottom of the page, there’s a link to Don’t Stay In.

That’s not me.

There’s another smileykt out there, and every time I sign up to a website and see the words ‘That username is taken’, I feel like a small part of my soul* has been stolen.

It doesn’t happen often. And I can’t say I’ve ever tried to sign up to Don’t Stay In.

My name wasn’t always smileykt.

Back in the early days of the interweb** it was simply KT, and that was enough.

But oh no, two letters may be good enough for Scrabble, but it’s not good enough for Twitter, or IMDb, or well, anywhere. (I would have gone on, but well, you know.)

It’s probably for the best that I had to add on the smiley, as a few years later KT Tunstall would have come along and ruined everything.

But whenever I am blocked by this imposter smileykt, I feel like I should get in touch – why would they have chosen the name in the first place? I’m sure MyFitnessPal wouldn’t have been the first place this 25 year old female chose to stake a home on the internet, and, well, I’ve got most other places locked down.

Perhaps she’s got different usernames for every website – do you? I couldn’t handle it…different passwords yes, but usernames too? I’d need to get them tattooed.

And I don’t think she’s even that smiley.***

* not that we have a soul

** I’m old

*** Actually on her Don’t Stay In profile she’s got quite a big grin. But that’s just one tiny bit of evidence, if I google her I just find myself.