• CrayonRosary@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    A “burner” account? Never heard it called that before. “Sock puppet” or just “puppet” makes much more sense.

    • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s pretty common for people to refer to these types of accounts as burners on Twitter. I recall the GM of the 76ers getting in trouble about 5-10 years ago for having sock puppet accounts on Twitter and all the reporting referred to them as burners.

    • Beefy-Tootz@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Burner feels like such an old school term. I’ve more often heard “alt”, “Smurf”, or “finsta”. The last being a portmanteau of fake Instagram account

        • FloMo@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I always remember “toons” referring to your character, rather than your account. Kind of like the “cartoon character” you’re playing is how I understood it.

            • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              9 months ago

              Last I played years ago I think you could have 10? And that was per server, there were tons of servers to choose from, so if you wanted more, you could.

            • FloMo@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Yes, up to 10 per server, and you could have characters on multiple servers.

              I remember seeing the term even while playing pre-WoW MMO’s

        • moody@lemmings.world
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          9 months ago

          Isn’t a smurf supposed to be an account from an experienced user/player that’s meant to make them look new or lower ranked?

          Smurfing is when a high-level player trolls the lower ranks below their skill level.

          Lots of players have smurf accounts for games where high- and low-ranked players don’t get paired together, so they can play on the same team as their lower-ranked friends.

    • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Guess they don’t think their readership is smart enough to know what a “sock puppet” or “puppet” account is.