The fact that there's a lady out there named Stephanie who insisted the whole world call her Lady Gaga and we're all just like, "okay."

LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 227 points –
84

That's kind of how stage names work.

I've insisted people call me "esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie" for months and only like 2 people here ever did that. Breaks my heart.💔

Whoa whoa whoa, are you Margot Robbie? As in, the esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie? What an honor.

Of course I am, would I really lie to you over the Internet?

NGL, The first time I saw your username I really truly believed, and My heart was pounding and I was astounded and I was about to post something telling everyone that

she's really here! She's one of us!

I went down quite a rabbit hole reading everything in your profile before I realized

you're extremely knowledgeable about computers and you spend a lot of time on Lemmy, couldn't possibly be a world-traveling, in-high-demand, constantly busy Hollywood actress.

But I've also imagined after every interview we've seen her do, she immediately picks up her smartphone and goes straight to Lemmy because this is where she spends all her free time.

It's surprising how much extra time I can save when without Twitter or Instagram in my life.

Also, why can't I know a little bit about computers? Didn't I tell you Barbie is everything?

One of these days there'll be an interview where Margot Robbie talks about her constant use of Lemmy

I want to believe..

And I want to believe I will finally win that Oscar next March...

I will be rooting for you, esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie

Fingers crossed that I'll get to call you esteemed Academy Award winning character actress Margot Robbie

You're the most prolific person on Lemmy or I just always notice your comments. Because I'm a huge fan of course.

Prince literally wanted us to call him a symbol with no explanation.

It took me years until I finally learned why he did that. It had something to do with the music industry owning his name. He reclaimed ownership of all his music and art and made a departure from the extortionate music industry.

Could've picked something easier to pronounce, though.

It was actually brilliant. Got everyone talking about him without really giving up ‘Prince’ in the public consciousness.

Never thought of it that way but yeah. Gave up his name without actually giving it up. Brilliant. That guy was savy as fuck. Also a genius.

I asked GPT why:

In the early 1990s, Prince was embroiled in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., his record company. He felt they were restraining his creativity by not allowing him to release albums as frequently as he desired. In 1993, in an act of rebellion, he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, which was a combination of the male and female gender symbols, in order to free himself from his contract obligations to Warner Bros. Since the symbol had no pronunciation, he was often referred to as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" during that period. He returned to using the name Prince in 2000, after his publishing contract with Warner Bros. expired.

3 more...

The unpronounceable symbol :

Hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar

(known to fans as the "Love Symbol")

I'm in awe of the outstanding quality of the symbols pic

24 x 28 pixels, 320 bytes, from Wikipedia...
Prince_logo.svg.webp
... if it really was SVG format it would be much greater quality.

They may have made the classic "let's batch-optimize all images for the web" or maybe using a CDN provider, either with wrong settings.

Yeah SVG would make it almost endlessly scalable.

Maybe you know, did he want to be called "the artist"? And then everyone added "formerly known as Prince"?

3 more...

Artists be like that. Stage names have been a thing for quite some time.

Writers use pen names too. I'm kinda confused why OP even thinks this is notable?

Maybe they don't. They never even finished the sentence, so maybe they were going to say "...is incredibly mundane and unnoteworthy"

Vin Diesels real name is Mark Sinclair and weve all accepted that too. Marilyn Manson's name is Brian Warner and Alice Cooper was born Vincent Furnier. Stage names are pretty common with performers

Isn't that just kind of... how names are supposed to work?

I had to double back to your comment because at first I glances at it and thought yeah... Then I thought about it some more and thought .... Yes! That is exactly how they work. Papers plus or minus but that is the way they work. We all agree upon it and bam. You are now named!

The fact there is a dude out there who wants to be called "Buckethead" and wears a bucket of KFC over his head but also has the sickest guitar skills ever is even weirder.

Never heard of Buckethead before so I had to look him up. HOLY FUCK can that dude shred.

I found out about him in Guitar Hero 2(?) because Soothsayer is on there and was the only song that used all 4 fret buttons even on the easiest settings (which would normally limit the fret buttons needed to just the first 3). I couldn't physically press all 4 buttons at once (the distance between them was such that my pinky didn't quite reach enough to actually press the last button in) which was why I only ever played at Medium or lower.

Pro tip: it's easier to leave your whole hand shifted up and reach back for the green with your index finger.

JK Rowling also writes as Robert Galbraith.

In case people don't know, JK Rowling's pen name is a reference to Robert Galbraith Heath, a psychiatrist who experimented with gay conversion therapy in the 60s and 70s using surgically implanted electrodes on gay men's brains. He claims to have "cured" one of them. He did lots of other fucked up things too, and of course Rowling denies her pen name has anything to do with him. FWIW, she also claims she's not a bigot, but her words and actions clearly indicate otherwise.

JK Rowling’s pen name is a reference to Robert Galbraith Heath, a psychiatrist who experimented with gay conversion therapy in the 60s and 70s using surgically implanted electrodes on gay men’s brains.

Unless thats some conservative dog whistle I don't know about, (and I'm no JKR apologist) your statement directly contradicts her own official answer as to the origin of the name:

Why the name Robert Galbraith?

I chose Robert because it’s one of my favourite men’s names, because Robert F Kennedy
 is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the
 Potter series or The Casual Vacancy.

Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. When I was a child,
 I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why.
 I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed, because
 I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. Be that as it may,
 the name had a fascination for me. I actually considered calling
 myself L A Galbraith for the Strike series, but for fairly obvious 
reasons decided that initials were a bad idea.

Odder still, there was a well-known economist called 
J K Galbraith, something I only remembered by the time it was
 far too late. I was completely paranoid that people might take 
this as a clue and land at my real identity, but thankfully nobody
 was looking that deeply at the author’s name.

source

and of course Rowling denies her pen name has anything to do with him.

What’s wrong with LAG other than computer lag?

It’s British slang for a convict or prison term. It’s not very common now, but “old lag” used to mean a habitual criminal. No idea of the etymology though - maybe related to a lag (in time)?

I don't see how. The initials JKR dont appear anywhere in there, is there something Im missing?

Can you think of another author who uses JK before their surname? It would have been a pretty big hint as soon as people realised JK Galbraith didn’t exist.

None, but it still feels like someone wanted to add to her list of crimes. Like is he famous? Is it likely she knew of some random scientist before she came up with the pen name?

Plus her name is literally Joanne Rowling. She already had one initial.

Sorry, I confused myself and thought you were replying to a later comment - I thought you were asking how people would have guessed JK Rowling and JK Galbraith were the same person.

I think it’s fair to say Robert Galbraith-Heath is an (in)famous psychiatrist. I remember his name from my student days. As for her purposely using the name of a conversion therapist as a pen name in order to… be more homophobic? That seems like a bit of a leap to me, but idk her bigoted views in any real depth tbh.

And I looked up the other name before I realised I’d confused myself and found there was a famous JK Galbraith too, according to wikipedia He sounds like a bit of a dick too. Sorry for the confusion, I need sleep.

No worries, I do the same thing sometimes. I hope you sleep well!

1 more...

All I know is that I love it when they call me big papa.

Often, while waving their hands in the air like they just don't care.

I mean, have you seen/heard her perform? She's very convincing.

yeah her music videos are absolutely mesmerizing. I would do anything she tells me.

Just wait until you hear about Engelbert Humperdinck.

I bet he was born John Smith, and Engelbert Humperdinck is a stage name that he chose for some insane reason

1 more...

Steph-Steph-ooh-la-la doesn't have quite the same ring.

Yet fergalicious-def-def Is okay with everybody. That girl didn't even bother to change her name.

There's a whole army of men who want to be referred to as women and women who want to be referred to as men, so Stephanie -> Lady Gaga is pretty tame.