A long-awaited explanation of my username history
Hi, I'm SurrealEmber. I am an artist who posts on social media, so it's not too surprising that I went through several usernames.
However, I believe my case is a little bit different from usual, to the point of confusing some people, and potentially causing others to accuse me of stealing someone's identity (which thankfully hasn't happened... yet), so I decided it was necessary to explain everything in detail.
Let's start from the first ever usernames that I've used on English/international websites. Those were RussianMage on Newgrounds and SashaTheMushroom on DeviantArt, around 2014.
It's extremely inadvisable to even vaguely doxx yourself when you're ≈11, but thankfully I wasn't noticed by any creeps. Anyway, as you can see, I really liked both mushrooms and mages back then, and I still think they're neat.
The first username that some people might actually remember is TheBraveRadish, which I used around the 2015-2016 on a website called PIQ.
If you didn't know, PIQ was a Flash art editor bundled with some community features. The website is pretty dead now, but somehow it's still around, even though its parent website (codeus.net) is blank.
As for the origin of the username, I used to be fascinated with radishes, though more because of how they looked (I really hated the taste). Me playing Super Mario Bros 2, which features a lot of veggie-chucking, might've also contributed.
Eventually I decided that TheBraveRadish didn't fit my personality, and I made a new DeviantArt account under the username TheCalmRadish around 2016. I decided to make some tweaks to the titular radish's design as well.
In 2017 I started posting my art on OpenGameArt under the same username, and to this day it's my oldest surviving account. The OGA page actually properly redirects for all the usernames I've used for it, so this is the easiest way to prove that I'm the same person :3c
Around 2019 I decided to drop the "The", making it just CalmRadish. This is the first username that truly became my "brand", and it was when I first started making proper friends online.
In 2020 I made an account called CoffeeMoth. I was embarrassed by my emerging Minecraft YouTuber interest, so I decided to make a separate identity.
I first found the username on NameMC when I was trying to think of something to choose, and I thought moths were cute. I ended up changing it to coffe_moth and then CopheeMoth because CoffeeMoth was taken in too many places and I wanted to avoid being confused with someone else.
Here's the pivotal moment.
I've been going through a lot of mental health struggles at the end of 2020, and as a result I decided to abandon my online identity as CalmRadish. I also cut off my IRL friend earlier, so I thought that keeping the name CalmRadish was dangerous, because he might've known about it and could theoretically doxx me.
However, the self-imposed social isolation hurt too much, so in 2021 I came crawling back to the CopheeMoth account. Later I decided to drop the ruse and revealed that I was CalmRadish all along, thinking that I wasn't in any danger anymore. It took some time to convince people, but it worked.
So... in 2025 I decided to have another rebrand. But why?
Well, over the years I grew weary of CopheeMoth for several reasons:
- It was heavily associated with my moth "fursona" and coffee-like colors, which I didn't like anymore
- I felt like it didn't fit my vibe in general (too "cute")
- I wanted a username that could fit any of my potential personas if I grew tired of them as well
I started thinking up my new sona, and eventually settled on an "evolution" of a character that I used all the way back in elementary school and throughout early middle school. This helped me choose the new username a little bit.
I gathered up a lot of words with the vibe I liked, while keeping in mind that I wanted a nickname that was easy to pronounce (like Radish or Moth), and that it shouldn't be taken anywhere. After checking a whole bunch of combinations I eventually picked OneiricEmber, but didn't start my "rebranding" yet.
The "Oneiric" part of OneiricEmber was an obscure word which was clunky to pronounce, so I grew to dislike it. I decided to check the adjectives with the right vibe again, and realized that SurrealEmber wasn't taken.
...And this is where I'm currently at. I don't think I'll change my username again unless some unforeseeable event occurs. I hope I managed to avoid causing further confusion while explaining everything ^^
