I've been on the internet since the early 2000s and across time I've gone by different pseudonyms for different reasons. Here's a brief overview!
For several of these usernames, and depending on the website, I had to add numbers to the ends to make them unique, but these had no real significance. I've not included them here for simplicity.
This was a username I used exclusively for Webkinz. I got my first Webkinz plushie for my birthday in 2007 (a tiger I creatively named Webkie), but I threw out it's code tag, not knowing about the website... I was given another plushie (a black lab) in July 2007, and created my account on 2007-07-19. I named my account after my dog, Rufus. I think Webkinz is still technically running, but I stopped being active on there in late 2009.
Another site I spent a ton of time on was Club Penguin (RIP). On there I used the name Slippy, named after the Star Fox character and also because ice is slippery. My mom set up my account and even paid for the premium membership for a while. Unfortunately she also restricted my use of the chat features and I couldn't talk to anyone. After doing some internet archeology, I've figured out I likely made my account sometime between August and November 2008, and I stopped regularly playing sometime in late 2010. I've never used this name anywhere else.
Alright this is a name I used in multiple places. Primarily Minecraft Classic, the in-browser multiplayer mode. That account is very dead, but I would have made it sometime in mid 2011. I also used the name on Poptronica, Roblox, and the now-defunct EverybodyEdits. I made a Roblox account on 2011-07-20 but only played on it once and never again. I should try doing some more digging into this name as I don't remember when or how I came up with it. My Poptronica account might still exist so I should try to find that...
Despite Minecraft being pretty much the only thing I did in my spare time for all of 2011 and 2012, I didn't have my own account. I used a cracked launcher up until mid 2012 when a friend let me use his account so I could play on servers. His username was Balloons, and so I had to take on that pseudonym. In October 2013, I began uploading YouTube videos and in my earliest Minecraft Let's Play episodes, you can hear me refer to myself as Balloons because I didn't have any other name.
Finally, the first name I used unanimously and chose for myself! For Christmas 2013, my brother got me a code to redeem a new Minecraft account and I spent several hours writing out username ideas in my notebook. In the end I settled on E4io, which I took from this Game Grumps video. I tried renaming my YouTube channel to E4io but the stupid Google+ naming rules required me to call it Eforio Games for some time. Initially, "E4io" was taken in Minecraft, meaning I had to settle for E4io_, but in February 2015, Minecraft Classic accounts were deleted, freeing the name for me. All of 2015 and the first half of 2016 were pretty quiet for me online, and I didn't create much, so the impact of the E4io name was never that large.
At the recommendation of my brother, I had read through about half of Homestuck off and on between 2013 and 2016. From that webcomic, I learned the word Biznasty as an ironic synonym for cool. In July 2016, I changed my Skype username to Biznasty. Initially it was as a joke, but evidently the name ended up sticking. On 2016-07-22, my friendgroup and I switched to Discord, and I carried the name over there. Soon after, I changed my YouTube and Minecraft usernames as well. I held onto this name for eight years and still technically use it.
In December 2024, I started to feel disconnected from name Biznasty, and didn't like how inherently shitpost-y it sounds. Part of this was surely due to my edgy past and occasional trollsome behaviour, but I also felt the name in and of itself was too unserious. I didn't want to completely rebrand because I still like being called Biz. So, simply shortening the name was a perfect compromise! Earlier in 2024, I had joined the furry community and, for simplicity, I had named my fursona after my online alias. However, "Biznasty" as the name of a character sounds really strange. "Biz" is much more convincingly a name. It's cuter too! On most websites, "biznasty" was already taken as a username anyways, meaning I often had to go with my backup, "bizcastl" (a portmanteau of Biznasty and the Autechre track, "Blyz Castl").
Sometime in March 2017, I came up with the name PhatDabz as a funny rapper alias, and used it in the title of a few now-lost shitposts I uploaded to my youtube channel. Later that year in June, I began regularly making music under this alias. Keeping with the shitpost rapper theme, my discography comprised of comedic rap songs made as quickly and terribly as possible.
As I entered 2018, I started taking my music production more seriously and worked intently on what would become my first album, Manual. While that album was originally uploaded to my PhatDabz soundcloud page, it was reattributed to Wers in April 2019. I don't remember how I came up with the name Wers, but I know I initially wrote it down as a potential track title. around this time, I often took inspiration from license plates to make weird words and phrases, so that could be its origin. The last time I released music as Wers was January 2023. After that, I felt I had gone as far as I could with the name, and wanted a reset. When I resumed releasing music in 2024, I used my more known and ubiquitous name, Biz.
A short-lived musical alias. I briefly experimented with recategorizing some of my music under this new alias as a way to split my traditional techno from my more experimental music. These My song Techium on the nodal dynamics compilation remains as a remanent of this alias.
The fictitious Scottish man born in 1971 whom I portrayed during the Hooper Bay hoax. Purported to own a copy the lost Boards of Canada album, Hooper Bay.