hi, i'd like to change my name to "tay." i dropped the w97 a few weeks ago and i'd like my alias here to reflect that if possible. hopefully this isn't too much to ask, thanks!

at vile's request:

tayw97. 4 letters, 2 numbers, and a name that has defined myself online for the last 6 years. To adequately describe why I wish to change my alias, something that has become my identity, requires one to experience the journey of this simple name, from origin, to a long lasting moniker.

It all began one fateful day in April, 2007. A particularly tech-savvy 9 year old, I was the type of kid who would make new emails for fun. The thrill of trying a new host could excite me for days. However, today I felt the urge to create an email, and stick with it. Although I had previously possessed aliases ranging from "papelbon100" to "mariobro9", I never maintained one for terribly long. Whether it was on a hip new game such as Club Penguin, or a baseball trading card forum, I couldn't keep one name. But this day, having seen the error in my ways, I decided it was time for a change. And so, perhaps the most ingenious, creative name of all time was born. "tayw97". Consisting of tay from Taylor, my name, w from my last initial, and 97 from my birth year, it rolled off the tongue perfectly. And with that Gmail account created, from that point on anything I made was blessed with the alias tayw97.

Over time, my alias became my identity. I became well known in a shitty Quake knock-off fps called Uberstrike as tay, and every game I played I proudly wore the same title. I had branded myself across the web with the name. Gmail, YouTube, Photobucket, Twitch, Steam, Reddit, last.fm, and any game I could get my hands on, tayw97 was who I was. A bit more than a year ago as I began to get into 6s and the world of competitive TF2, I was still bearing the same name, accompanied majestically by my first, and to this day only TF2 team's tag [FiNAL]. With such a cool alias, I climbed the ranks with ease. I attracted the attention of players across North America, and within only a year, I had gone from a steel roamer, to a silver roamer, undoubtedly remarkable progress fueled largely in part due to my name.

However, one day changed it all, and the empire I had built for myself over 6 long years came crumbling down in a matter of hours. Merely hoping to engage myself in a friendly game of TF2 with friends, I was fatkidded from not one, but two pugs in a row. This tragic event was devastating to my self esteem. I lost everything I had worked for, my life and more importantly, promising TF2 career in ruins. I did not know what to do, and after days of deliberation in seclusion, I determined I had no choice but to reinvent myself. And thus, I made the hardest decision of my life, I had to change my alias. Many alternatives were considered in the process of deciding on a new name, but eventually I settled on one name, one alias to last the rest of time: "tay." And on that day, everything changed. Although without the [FiNAL] tag and the additional w97, I made far fewer girl gamer panties wet, the change was necessary.

And that is why I want to change my alias. Thanks.