Pete_LeGrant April 13, 2009 Features 4,657 views Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Practically every time I log on to XBOX Live, I end up chuckling or shaking my head at the gamertags I see. I think gamertags in general can be broken down into several kinds, but these kinds aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. One and the same gamertag can be of multiple kinds.

• One thing that all the classes have in common is that a gamer’s first choice of gamertag is often already taken, forcing him/her to tack on “XXx … xXX” or random numbers to the gamertags. They might use 3 for E, 4 for A, or add underscores or XXXs. (What a tragedy.) This practice is exemplified in the discussion below.

• Another factor that plays into gamertag choice is The Prince Factor. Each gamertag can be seemingly magnified, made more hardcore, if it can be just one word. This applies to any of the classes listed below. MLG players love to do this more than anybody (as well as putting “MLG” in their clantags, the MLG logo in their bios, or any other way they can parade their MLG or fake-MLG status.) (And by the way, I have no ambitions of going MLG. I have other plans, thank you.) Hence you find gamertags like XxxPARADOXxxX, X_F4LL4CY_X, , Hysteriks, Temperament, etc. Most of these gamertags will fall into the number one kind below.

• Also, what goes for gamertags here also goes for clantags. The same principles apply.

Number ten:

First, there’s the mafia kind. You have HITMAN79494, MaF1AKILL3r, and GANGSTA_LIVIN. They’ve thrown justice to the wind, and they are proclaiming to the world their intimate knowledge of the underworld of crime. They’ve been around the block, and are supposedly familiar with the elegant universe of sawed-off shotguns, drug dealing, extortion, larceny, money laundering, and giving a guy a pair of concrete flippers “to send him swimmin’ with the fishies”–you know, the good ol’ “thug life.” (I’ve always been impressed by their time management skills. So many hours of video games and still time to run an intricate crime syndicate? Wow, tHugGLife420, you are Don Corleone to a new level. The Halo 3 level. And don’t forget the running from the FBI, the ATF, and the local police. Gotta be able to do that, too.)

Number nine:

Another group is what I will call the pastry class. (I don’t have a better label.) You have mUFF1nM4N99, DR WAFFLES, fUNkyDonut76. I don’t really know what the hell is going on with this class, to tell you the truth. All I know is, I see far more gamertags with “waffle” in them than I ever expected. It baffles the mind.

Number eight:

One of my favorites is the Gothic class. A lot of this involves bringing in loose religious themes and giving them what ordinary people would call a “heavy metal” twist. Many of these gamertags could mistaken for the titles of metal albums. F4LL3N_ANgel897, H3LLSGUNN3r, SINS REAVER7. This class is hardcore in an otherworldly way. They have transcended the “skillz” of the mafia kind, going with something more “elemental.” Maybe you combine this with the “bulls-eye” class: GODSsN1per7749. (They are more likely to listen to nu-metal than hip-hop or rap.) They might resort to Greek myths or to eastern religions to enhance the obscurity/mystical nature of the gamertag: sH1vA_r34p3r, tHoRs_H4MM3r, etc. Karma would qualify for this.

Number seven:

Don’t forget the bud-smoker class. This group loves to profess their love for Mary Jane. This class is easily combinable with any other class, simply by adding 420 to any of the examples I’ve given above. this class says, “My identity is centered around some smoke I inhale.” The bud-smokers are friends of
the mafia class, because they both have a rebel theme going on. (Fine. Ok. Sure.) The bud-smokers get a kick out of advertising their illegal behavior because they know they won’t get busted as a result. Common strategies of the bud-smoker center the gamertag around paraphrenalia or the strength of their bud. Hence: bOnGm4sT3r420, DaNKtOKer420, jo1nTLOV3R420, bUddHApHrEaK420, etc. Perhaps the pastry class is a close relative of the bud-smokers..

Number six:

A little milder than the others is the activities class. These gamers are more casual than some of the other classes, because they want you to know that there’s something really special they enjoy. Their gamertags are the equivalent of the “I’d-rather-be…” kind of bumper sticker. So you get s0cc3rDuD316, DrUMGoD227, hock3y688. This class also includes the deep, existential gamertags that just consist of the names of their cars mazD4_DRiv3R786, fOrDTauRusSHO. This kind of gamertag says, “I’m not really a gamer. My identity is built around sitting in a bucket seat and turning a wheel and pushing my foot against a pedal. Anyway, let me get my juggernaut perk set up…”

Number five:

Then there is the Ralph Wiggum and Brick Tamland class. (I think Brick is what Ralph would be if he grew up and had a career.) These gamers literally announce themselves with their gamertags: iTz_D4nny, iTz_BiLLy, iTz_K4rL. Sometimes they simply apply adjectives to themselves: D4nny_ iz_SIK, BiLLy_iZ_s1k, K4rL_iZ_BAMF. It seems to me that this gamertag serves more to remind Brick that his name is “Brick” than to identify himself to other people. Sometimes this class is indistinguishable from the next class.

Number four:

There’s the screw-it class. This kind of gamertag reflects the impatience or the lack of imagination of the gamer. Case 1: “I REALLY NEED TO PLAY RESIDENT EVIL 5 RIGHT NOW, AND I’M TIRED OF ALL MY IDEAS FOR A GAMERTAG BEING REJECTED BECAUSE THEY’RE ALREADY TAKEN, SO I’M JUST GOING TO PUT IN SOME RANDOM LETTERS AND NUMBERS. hjsbsj57578” Case 2: “What expresses exactly who I am? Bob78399373.” Done and done. “Bring on Halo Wars!”

Number three:

Don’t forget the shock-jock class. Their mission is to make you squirm by coming up with a gamertag that’s going to offend your midwestern sensibility. (if you have one.) They would be fans of the Garbage Pail Kids, if they were still around. They are cousins of the mafia class and the Gothic class, although they tend to have more of a sense of humor than either. (The mafia class doesn’t smile, and the Gothic class doesn’t chuckle.) Here you find gamertags like bAbyPunt3r666, kiTT3NkiLL3r, etc.

This class also includes the sexual innuendo subclass. I won’t get into this one, as you can see easily for yourself where this is going. They are definitely shock-jocks, although they share tendencies with both the bud-smoker class and the mafia class.

Number two:

Another close cousin of the shock jocks is the noob-hunter class. They are obsessed with proclaiming how they out noobs/newbs in their place NOOBsL4Y3r420, NEWB_PWNER, NOOBS_MERKER. This is paradoxical to me, because, if the opponent really is a noob, what’s the big deal in “dominating” him/her in Quake III? Do you think LeBron James walks around bragging about mopping up some fools in a pickup game down at the YMCA? Hell no. Not worth his time. Really, the noob-hunter wants to claim that when he/she beats someone in his/her own level, the opponent has been degraded to noob status. I include general boasters in this class, as well: K4RNaGe666, DR_PWNAGE, Ag3NT_oF_KAOS, etc. This class is just a step away from:

Number one:

For the FPS games, in particular, you will find the “bulls-eye” class. However, this class easily has variants across the different types of games.These people are hardly short on self-esteem, or so they’d like you to think, anyway. The MLG-types love this class most of all. They want to advertise their skills in their gamertags, and they are the most passionate about gaming. That is why they earn the number one spot.  These gamers choose gamertags like hEaDshOt1997 or sHaDoWsN1p3r_666 or SnipeItuP. Maybe they put their favorite gun–say, the Battle Rifle–in their gamertag XXxdEaDly_BRxXX (the Halo 3 crowd). They are prone to counting obsessively their headshots and sigh deeply and mournfully when their kill/death ratios go down by a hundredth of a point. As noted before, this class loves to engage in irony, sometimes employing noob-toob-like weapons whenever they happen to feel like it. The best way to get “inside their heads” is simply to cite the scoreboard of games in which they have not performed well.