• Nicknames 2.0 •
[2 MIN READ]
One thing I’ve learned both from editing for the Facebook group and ShawmontRunningClub.com and from talking about trail tags with club members is that not everyone likes them. WHAT? I guess I never woulda thunk it.
When I say not everyone likes them, I don’t mean they don’t want anyone to have them; I mean they don’t necessarily like the ones they have or they just feel they’re unnecessary for themselves. What’s a club to do? A degree of anonymity has some value—after all, there are bad actors out there who do things with people’s legal names, their primary source of identification—but aren’t trail tags just a peculiar formality? The answer lies in a combination of what’s advantageous for the group and what a given individual wants. Preserving a degree of anonymity isn’t going away. No one has sued the running club, yet, for publishing their legal name, but no one wants to experience it a first time.
So what happens if someone doesn’t the like the bad tag they’ve been dealt?
In many cases, the answer can be relatively easy to address. A conclave of 2 runners, including the owner of the name, can just agree on a new one. F’rinstance, the runner formerly-known-as-Howard-the-Elder already had a trail tag that just never made it to the Run Report (now Newsletter). Voilà, Half Caff. Veteran Wolfie’s adult son ran with the club for the first time in October. He’d heard others reference him as Young Wolf in other spaces and that suited him just fine. Voilà. And for those who don’t want any trail tag? Voilà. None.
To those who knew our beloved founder Zen Yanni and are originalists, this might come across as sacrilege because earlier on, he did the bestowing. As a retired army guy who saw nicknames develop all the time, it was easy for him to bestow them and accept them. Previously, though, when the deed was done, there was never much need to change. Well, times now have changed and developing new ways of doing things also has its place. So, as far as creating trail tags, ‘Long live the democracy.’ As a writer and editor, though; I’m still not listing full names. For more, read Trailtagging II and Trailtagging.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 11/9/24), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination only with added caption.
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