I am MrYoop. To me it is more than just an internet handle. It is a legacy. Only I have the right to claim it, even though a few have tried to steal it. I often get asked as to how I came up with such an unusual name. For brevity I usually tell people that it comes from the Oz Books by L. Frank Baum. Specifically The Patchwork Girl of Oz written in 1913 by L. Frank Baum. Mr. Yoop was captured and placed in a cage in the Quadling Country because of his bad habit of taking peoples’ sheep and cows for food. His wife, Mrs. Yoop, is a Yookoohoo, and thus was able to escape and remain free. Dorothy, Ojo, and their friends encounter the Yoop while searching for water from a dark well, but are able to escape without any harm being done to them. The sign on his cage reads: Mr. Yoop — His Cave The Largest Untamed Giant in Captivity. Height, 21 feet.– (And yet he has but 2 feet.) Weight, 1640 Pounds. — (But he waits all the time.) Age, 400 Years ‘and up’ (as they say in the Department Store advertisements.) Temper, Fierce and Ferocious. — (Except when asleep) Appetite, Ravenous. — (Prefers Meat, People, and Orange Marmalade.) Strangers Approaching This Cave Do So At Their Own Peril! P. S. —Don’t feed the Giant yourself.
This seems to entertain people greatly. Although in reality it was not my interest in the books that lead me to such a great moniker as MrYoop. It began back in 1999 when my family got it’s first computer. My best friend played a computer game caled Jedi Knights:Dark Forces II. It featured online game play where you would battle others. There was a website called The MSN Gaming Zone, or just Zone.com. It has long since passed, but back then it was really popular. The featured many disc based games and many other board/card games. Each game had a multiple lobbies you could chat in and then que up at “tables” to play in.Being that they had an open lobby Zone.com needed people to monitor for infractions and basicly be system operators on the site. They did this with volunteers. There wee hundreds of volunteers, many more well known than others. The program was called Member Pluses.
So I started with the screen name DaYooperBird and this was for several reasons. First I was newish to the internet and I still didn’t let everyone know where I lived. So I told people I was from the UP of Michigan. People from there are called Yoopers. Second I was listening to some funny songs from a comedy band called Da Yoopers when I signed up. Third My friend was known as JaBird so I decided to match his name also. After awhile I decided to sign up to be a volunteer. It looked like fun, and indeed it was. We had power, and of course I liked that. We could take away chat privileges and even boot people off the site for up to 24hrs. We had a lot of different tools we could use to enforce the rules and help people. So I became +DaYooperBird.
After awhile I kind of grew complacent with such a caned name. Everyone called me Yoop, or Yooper back then so to try and shorten my name and be more unique I changed to +zYooper. Of course after awhile I started to let people know I lived in Wisconsin, and many began to know my real name also. So I decided I should shed the Yooper lie and just be me. So I switched to +zTrav. That was short lived because at this time I thought it would be cool to have my own theme song also. So I became +_MrDeadMan_. All this switching took a few years. You could only change your name once a few months. For months I had ben trying to shed the Yoop nickname. Unfortunatly I was a legend by that time and everyone knew me as Yoop. So I decided to let fate be what it is and with that I changed my screen name one last time.
I settled into +MrYoop and everyone was glad to see it. It had become something greater than myself. It was who I was, and who I would be for the rest of my life. The thing about great monikers is that the best are not chosen. The best ones are those given to you by others. Many people to this day still find me on Facebook, and around the web by just searching for MrYoop. I always take time to chat with them. To see how old friends are doing. I have many friends from those days.
So Now you know how I became MrYoop. It is a long story, but it would be longer if I explained every little detail. I could tell you all my personal responsibilities on Zone.com. But of course I won’t, that is not what this page is about! =:^)
By MrYoop 