If “TomHanks” is his username on every other service, like twitter, and youtube, and tiktok, and instagram, then he would want to use it when he comes to the fediverse. Now, if only ONE person can have the username TomHanks (and it just so happens to be @Lemmy.World), then he could send a cease and disist letter, and if that doesn’t work, a lawsuit. Madonna did it in the 90s with Madonna.com.

However, if TomHanks@Lemmy.World can exist, and TomHanks@Lemm.ee can exist, and TomHanks@piefed.social can exist and…and…and…then it gets a little impossible for him to really own that username, because it can be duplicated on an infinate amount of instances, some that may not even exist when he shows up to the fediverse.

But if only one instance can have TomHanks, than he could absolutely show courts he’s had a vested interest and usership of that identity and thus that’s HIS username. Even on services he’s never signed up for. Like if he doesn’t have an instagram account at all, but someone else starts using TomHanks on instagram, he can take it to the courts that they are not allowed to do that, because that’s his username.

But the way the fediverse is currently set up right now, that’s not feasible. Because he could enter a court battle with TomHanks@Lemm.ee, and then 5 more instances with his username popup. And eventually it becomes harder and harder to prove that people know his ownership of that username if there’s 500 other people also using the same username. It’s the reason you can’t email celebrities. They can’t control their presence in email, so they don’t use that as their identity.

It’s a thing.

Well the majority of the post was me trying to explain the question. I can’t just say “Has anyone else had the same thoughts I had?” because the first thing that would be asked is “What thoughts are you having?”

So yeah, I had to backtrack and explain my thoughts before I could ask if anyone else is having them. I was trying to learn if there’s other people who feel this way, or if this is among the many many many other things that people say “No, it’s just you”.

You saying that this is a thing other people experience is what I was trying to figure out. You’re taking a tone like it’s obvious, but it’s not obvious to me, so I thought this would be the place to ask things like that.

I mean sure…but essentially you’re using the facts as they stand as justification that it will never work, when my whole point is that these facts as they stand need to change because they will never work unless we change them.

People keep using email, and domains as reasons for why it’s not an issue, but there’s a reason celebrities aren’t known for their email. You can tweet at celebrities, and you can follow celebrities on instagram, and all the other services, but you generally can’t email them.

Now, the reason for this is that celebrity wants to own the exact spelling and exact letter/number combination that they’re known for. I like to try to make things relatable to the person that I’m talking to, but let’s face it, abff08f4813c is a really really bad username for branding purposes. But, be that as it may, IF you were a celebrity, and everybody knew abff08f4813c on instagram, and everybody knew abff08f4813c on twitter, then if you were to come to the fediverse, you wouldn’t want a second abff08f4813c to exist. You would want to own “abff08f4813c” on every platform, even if you’re not on that platform. Even if you don’t use tiktok, you would want to make sure nobody else has the name abff08f4813c on tiktok.

The problem is, the fediverse is so fractured that’s not really logistically possible. Because if you try to sue one person on one other instance that has abff08f4813c, now suddenly 300 more abff08f4813c on 300 different instances all pop up.

What I’m suggesting is, no matter which instance you’re on, if you search abff08f4813c, the search should find that username, and direct you to the profile that corrilates with you. And even though that profile is only on one instance, it would make it so if I tried to make abff08f4813c, on another instance, I would be told that username is already taken.

From there, you could absolutely create an old twitter style verification system. And NOW celebrities will be more willing to use the fediverse. But until that changes, I don’t see any celebrity who values their own brand on an international scale, be willing to publically announce they are on the fediverse, and their fans can migrate to the fediverse to follow them.

I’m his first/only, her 3rd. My sisters are roughly 10 years older than me.

I feel like some people are just emotional reactionaries. They see a certain story, and in their own mind they make the story worse than it is, and treat their feelings as fact.

I have no sources on this, or proof that this guy in particular is doing that.

…wait, am I doing it right now???

Hmmmmm…

Then no. If they migrate, thats a new account technically.

Are you trying to ban individual users for individual reasons? Or are you trying to ban all mastodon users?

This must be how normies feel about Weird Al every time he releases a new album. Everytime he does, I see headlimes like “Weird Al is back!” like it’s some kind of nostolgia tour.

Meanwhile I’m like “Uhhhhh…he never left. He can’t release an album every month…”. But if Green Day release a new album every 6 years, the headline is always “Green Days new album shows they still got it.”

Even though I think Weird Al has TONS more range than most bands that have been around 30+ years. Unironically, Weird Al may be one of the greatest musicians ever, but always gets treated like he’s been dormant since the 80s.

And I guess thats how I viewed the Carmen Sandiago series. I haven’t heard a peep out of them since the mid 90s when they had that late afternoon game show where players use clues to figure out where in the world, and later where in time, is Carmen Sandiago. But I guess I’m wrong. 22 games in 40 years is more than most series. Thats like Mario levels of game releases if you ignore the side projects.

Did you get number munchers, or the oregon trail?

You’re missing the point. You can have Tom.Hanks@twitter.com but you can’t have Tom_Hanks@othertwitter.com

So when you come to the fediverse, instead of searching for Tom_Hanks@tomhanks.com, you just search for Tom_Hanks, and the fediverse will know that defaults to the account Tom_Hanks. Which is the same account on Lemmy, the same account on Peertube, the same account on pixelfed.

Because it’s all Tom_Hanks.

Oh. That’s good. I’m a fan of his contributions to Lemmy for sure.

Funny thing of note, when he first started posting, I thought he was a girl. Not sure why. But for like 2 days I assumed Don was a woman.

Because it’s not centralized. Every platform/instance just uses the same protocols. Any that try to go against that get defederated by all instances.

Yeah, thats the goal. To make the fediverse (and Lemmy by assosiation) mainstream.

But you need to get the celebrities here first FOR the regular userbase to follow. Which is the whole point of the post.

It’s like those dog memes about the stick. “No take! Only throw!” Well, you have to take the stick first, THEN you can throw the stick.

Well, you need the celebrities here first, THEN the regular userbase will come.

So how do you get them here? Well first you make a list of every problem that would prevent a celebrity from coming here. Then iron out those rough edges first.

I’ve already talked in other posts prior how the only way to grow the userbase is to be welcoming of people that you have no interest in interacting with. But it’s fine. Because they don’t want to interact with you either. It doesn’t matter though because you can be on /c/Linuxmemes, and they can be on /c/homeandgarden.

And if Martha Stewart posted on /c/homeandgarden she’d bring her fanbase with her. And if Ozzy Osborn posted on /c/ozzybitesabat he’d bring his fanbase.

And so on and so on with each new celebrity. Some of them have overlap, some don’t. But you’re bringing more people, who create more instances, and then niche communities can develop. You get more people posting more content. And the platform grows with more varied topics than just politics, technology and video games.

Or you could ignore what the celebrities want, and google, and reddit, and instagram will always be the dominant platforms, while nobody will have ever heard of the fediverse.

I’m trying to bring the current system down.

Not sure what VC stands for…

But the Chinese boy with the broken leg is my 103 year old grandmother in a wheelchair. But he’s not actually Taylor Swift, which is the point of the comparison.

Oh I’ve been thinking it needs an official alliance now for some time. Where a preagreed set of protocols are all adheard to. Just so all the services can play nicely with each other. Still decentralized in operation, but unified in experience.

And if some rouge instance wants to stay seperate, well, good luck growing hexbear.

Was Don_Dickle banned or something?

Right now it’s not just decentralized. It’s fractured. It should operate as decentralized, but from a performance standpoint it should feel like it’s centralized.

Remember, most normies won’t know or care what decentralized even is. But the reason sites like instagram have users isn’t because it’s centralized. It’s because that’s where the content is.

Peertube is suffering HARD from lack of content. Which is why you want celebrities bringing exposure to the fediverse. They bring content.

Go outside to a popular public place and ask 100 people in person how many people have heard of the fediverse. I’d be SHOCKED if 1 person knew what it was.

Now get a popular youtuber like markiplyer, or good mythical morning, to post their stuff exclusively on peertube, and suddenly 2-6 million people all flock over and create accounts.

I don’t know who Artie Show is. You could have told me you were Artie Shaw, and I’d have not questioned it. I’d have just thought that was your name.

It would solve the issue for people who look into it. But what if I registered AstralPath@Lemmy.World? I could pretend to be you. And because most people won’t check, I’d get away with it until people caught on.

Now if you make your living off your public image, and I say horrible things, your career could take a hit. Even if nothing I said is true, and its proven it was never you.

People will just remember “Hey, remember that time AstralPath admitted to having sex with their grandmother?”

“No, that wasn’t actually them.”

“Are you sure? I remember reading about it in (insert tabloid here)”.

And suddenly you have a legit reason not to use a platform that easily ruins your career through no fault of your own.

People will ALWAYS attempt to troll online for the memes. Remember Boaty McBoatface?