This Speedrunner’s Name Is 'Tomatoanus.' Why? Good Question.

New Stories
1

Last week, a headline scrolled past my screen on Twitter from Polygon: “Change your name, speedrun organizers tell tomatoanus.” Tomatoanus. Tomato...anus. The story, documenting how this Fallout speedrunner was instead adopting the name “TomatoAngus” for the upcoming Awesome Games Done Quick event next January, takes this at face value. At no point does the reporter stop, raise their hand and go “Hello, tomato anus?” As a society, we have apparently been so numbed by the proliferation of competitive players using their weird online handles, names that were clearly chosen by teenagers who didn’t realize it would follow them for so many years later, that even something like TOMATOANUS fails to register.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke8pd/this-speedrunners-name-is-tomatoanus-why-good-question
2

“I tell a random story off the top of my head,” he said, “about how the name came to be, ranging from dressing up as a tomato one year for Halloween and the costume had a big crease in it, to gardening with my mom and landing perfectly on top of a tomato when I fell backwards. I’ll tell stories like these back-to-back sometimes because people will ‘miss’ the first story and ask me to tell it again since they weren’t there, so I just come up with a new story right after.”

That’s pretty great honestly.

Also tomatoes got a butt-lookin’ part, so the name tracks for me.

6 Likes
4

Joker telling the story of his scars except it’s about choosing Tomatoanus as his username.