If you search for the name Dzazter today, you’ll probably find Twitch channels, YouTube videos, gaming profiles, and social media accounts. My creation of the name, however, dates back to 1996.
That year, the consumer internet was exploding into mainstream America. Millions of people were discovering the online world through the colorful floppy disks and CDs that seemed to arrive in every mailbox. It was also the year I joined America Online as a Windows Technical Support Representative.
As part of new-hire onboarding, every employee needed a unique screen name. My first account was my work identity. The second account—my first personal, non-work screen name—became Dzazter.
I had no idea that a name chosen during AOL training would still be part of my identity three decades later.
Technology has changed dramatically since then, but one thing has remained constant: I still own and actively use the original screen name/handle created during that first week at AOL.
We spent our days walking customers through COM1 versus COM2 conflicts, modem initialization strings, IRQ settings, and the endless process of getting Windows 95 to recognize a 28.8 or 33.6 kbps modem. If everything finally worked, you were rewarded with the familiar handshake tones before AOL's "Welcome" screen appeared.