APD - Week 9 (revisited) Play & Rules

Context

Rules are things that we made by compromising our ideas with others.

When you know someone’s name, you will usually (consciously or unconsciously) put the person’s personality in a certain bubble. For an instance, whenever I hear someone named Carly (without having interact with them or sese them), I will quickly associate them with being playful, childish and bubbly, this is the result of the unwritten ‘rule’ that is made up inside my head since the only Carly I’ve known since birth is from a TV show iCarly. Thus, Carly is a rule. This association of names and personality relies heavily on experience and influences.

Method

For this week’s theme, I will take a playful approach to my really long name and give each of them a different personality based on the rules that I’ve had in my mind.

Reflection

I’m inspired by a trend on TikTok and decided to create my ‘alter egos’. I have a general rule for the names based on people in real life / characters that I encounter in the media that I know of.

• Alice. I had always associated this name with the iconic animated film Alice in Wonderland. She always depicted as a sweet cute sunshine girl. In my mind, a girl named Alice will always be a gullible, innocent playful girl. (I’ve never known anyone named Alice in real life)
• Veronica. I have a childhood friend with the name that’s basically a scoundrel. She’s a very tough and emo kid. She’s the closest person to me with the name Veronica and had left a big print on my mind. This image was further supported by how Veronica Lodge, a character from Riverdale appear in the show. Tough and grunge.
• Natasha. I remember back in New Zealand, I would have several Kazakhstan friends who would call me Natasha, as they thought it was funny that I have a very Russian sounding middle name. They always teased me how Natasha should be more calm and collected, different from my usual personality (who’s very loud and not calm). I played along with them sometimes and switch to this ‘Natasha’ persona that they had gave me ad become a quiet shy person.

I think this work is a fun project where everyone could have their own representation. My name ‘rules’ would be different from everyone else, or some of them might be the same based on the characters / people that we grew up with / had been accustomed with throughout our life.