After a decade of anonymity, I’m taking ownership of all my experiences.

What’s In A Name

For over 10 years from childhood to adulthood, I’ve used the internet under multiple pseudonyms. The earliest one I can recall was made in the early 2010s.

I played Minecraft. I was on a PC. And it was the year 2013. So put them together and you get… “pcgamermc2013”.

Ugh…

I’ve had many pseudonyms like that over these past 10 years. They’ve gone through a lot of experiences. Some of which were good. Others, not so much.

There are a lot of great moments I can remember. The online friends that came and went over the years. The interactions I’ve had with complete strangers.

I remember someone I once messaged with. They were going through a bout of depression and feeling worthless. I could empathize with that, and so I tried to do what I could by speaking with them.

About a year later, I got a message from them telling me that they were doing better and thanking me. In hindsight, I feel I could’ve said a lot of things differently. But they said it helped, so I won’t ruminate too much on that.

It was a wonderful thing to hear.

However, there have also been many times when my lack of good judgment got the better of me. I got into many heated arguments with others online, swearing and throwing vitriol along the way.

It made me so angry. I was telling myself I “had” to be this way. The longer it went on, the worse I felt. I didn’t want to be like this. But I chose to anyways out of this desire for “retribution”.

Over the past years, my thinking has changed. I no longer agree with some ideas I’ve had in the past. But there are certain mindsets I’m still working to break out of.

Which one of those people am I? Am I the “nice person” some claimed I was? Or the angrily argumentative one? I would say I’m both of them, but honestly…

I feel like neither.

All of my experiences have been attributed to jumbles of letters, numbers, and symbols. It’s been so long since I’ve actually felt like a person. I can barely remember being called by my real name.

So by transitioning to using my real name, I want to take ownership of everything my names have done and gone through. Both the good and the bad. And by doing so, I will also take ownership of my work.

It’s taken me quite some time to lock in this decision. The fear of judgment is an obvious reason. But I also believe I was embarrassed by my more innocuous work as well.

I believe that by using my real name, I will finally regain a sense of self. I chose to let fear consume me, which led to me making poor choices. I don’t think this will be one though.

I’m already feeling the return of that glow. It’s reminiscent of the childhood innocence I once had. I believe this decision is the right one.

So allow me to introduce myself.

Re-Introduction

Hello. My name is Justin Yee.

I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science in Spring 2022. As mentioned, I have been working on improving in facets of visual novel development since 2017.

My hometown is San Francisco, California. I lived there for about 13 years before I moved away. I came back for about 1.5 years to go to college, but then the pandemic hit and I returned to my current home to learn remotely.

I’m still unemployed at the moment. That’s certainly been a ride on my mental state. But I’ve also been volunteering as a Software Engineer since February 2023. It’s been great to have a sense of purpose again.

This is pretty nerve-wracking.

As of the time of writing, it’s already been over a month since I started writing here on Medium. But I look forward to doing much more. And I hope this marks the beginning of better times.

Every word I write and action I take.
Every setback and mistake I make.

From today on, they’re mine.