Gamertagged

Ep 2 – Dilutedspine | Vaporwave Identity, Shoutcasting Origins & Vape Foot Lore

• Gamertagged Studios • Season 1 • Episode 2

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What happens when a random name generator gives you a tag… and it sticks for life?
In this episode of Gamertagged, we meet Dilutedspine — a Twitch streamer, lo-fi creative, and unexpected empath whose digital identity was forged in a garage and evolved across sci-fi, StarCraft, Tarkov VoIP, and therapy streams.

🎮 We unpack the tension of being “too nice for the internet,” his shoutcasting roots, and the mythos of Vape Foot — a cursed ritual born in chaos and carried by Twitch chat.

It all leads to the ReRoll segment, where we co-create the official Dilutedspine trading card: cyborg limbs, vaporwave armor, and yes… a foot that vapes.

🎙️ Guest: Dilutedspine
🎧 Hosted by: Scarto46, Ryanocerus
🛠️ ReRolled by: The Crew at Gamertagged Studios

🌐 Discover more episodes, trading cards, and digital identity stories: linktr.ee/gamertagged

Tell us your gamertag story 🎮

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Gamertagged is a podcast by Gamertagged Studios.
Digital identities. Real stories.

We explore the stories behind gamertags, usernames, and online personas—through interviews with gamers, creators, and the people behind the persona.

Want your own card? Share your story. Join the community.
Find everything here: linktr.ee/gamertagged

Dilutedspine:

put an Irishman from Boston on and made him grow potatoes Like come on, irish people love potatoes.

Ryanocerus:

I know they're preparing for a second family. They're getting ready.

Scarto46:

Game attack known across lo-fi airwaves and twitch timelines as diluted spine, this tech savvy tactician lives at the intersection of vaporwave systems and story. Today, on gamert, we dive into how a Gamertagged became a persona, one shaped by proximity, voice over IP in Tarkov, vapor-coated aesthetics and the quiet power of staying weird. Hey, welcome, deluded Spine. Thanks for coming on to Gamertagged, hey how are you now? I'm good now. Now is really odd.

Ryanocerus:

Hey, how are you now? I don't know. I'm glad that you were the one responding to that, because I was like I don't know, how is anyone responding to that.

Scarto46:

I was just talking three minutes ago, and what do you mean now?

Dilutedspine:

It's like a greeting. Have you never seen Letterkenny before? I guess not. What is Letterkenny? It's a Canadian comedy to show. It's like Shakespeare, but Canadian Hicks. Basically Okay, All right. Well, that's cool.

Scarto46:

Hey, yeah, I'm sorry, I wasn't ready for keeping it Canadian. I'm good now. Thanks for asking. Also joining us tonight is our co-host in our rotating chair, the Rhinoceros.

Ryanocerus:

My chair, in fact, is not rotating tonight. You're welcome.

Scarto46:

That's good, because it squeaked most of the first episode, so it's good that it's not rotating.

Ryanocerus:

It squeaked the entire episode and I didn't realize it squeaked until I listened to the audio from the episode.

Scarto46:

Yeah, it was pretty solid, but it's. You know, we iterated, we made different choices, we edited out what we could.

Ryanocerus:

Maybe no one noticed. Someone's going to go back and like really listen to it now, just to find mature squeaks like send you all the time markers. Well, I hope that's you that's going to go back and do that.

Dilutedspine:

I already sent that in.

Scarto46:

So look, tonight we're talking to Deluded Spine. We're going to work through a couple different components of the show, right? So we're going to start off talking about the origins of that name Deluded Spine. So, starting at the beginning, where did the tag diluted spine come from? Was it a joke moment or like?

Dilutedspine:

a myth you made real like, because it's kind of a crazy name, right like. I can tell you exactly the like year, the place I was at, literally where I was sitting when I came up with that name. It would have been 2007,. Like October 2007. I was visiting.

Dilutedspine:

Well, I wasn't visiting, I was hanging out at my friend Mara Jack's house that's his handle and I didn't have internet at home so I would bring my computer to his house. He had internet. He went to school with me. I grew up in the sticks. He went to school with me, but he lived in town and his mom would bring him out because she worked in the town that I lived in, and so he went to school with me and that's how I knew him.

Dilutedspine:

And I brought my computer into his house to have internet access, because I had gotten the orange box and was setting up steam and you had to have an internet connection for that. And so I brought my computer in and I was setting up my Steam account originally and it wanted me to make up a username and I didn't know what to put and I wasn't going to use what I had been using. So I went on Google and searched random name generator and, I'm sorry, random word generator and just ran it and pick the first two words that came out of it and that was diluted spine and that's how that came to be so like this is in a time period before there was a gamer tag name generator or give me a fantasy name generator kind of situation yeah, I mean, this was, you know, 2008, like 2007, 2008.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, it was very early on like.

Scarto46:

So you still rocking dial up at this time. Like you said, you didn't have internet at the house at the time.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, At my actual house I was living at. Yeah, I was out of high school at the point, but I hadn't moved out yet to live in a major city, and so, like I only had dial up, and so that was go to his house, set up PC in his closet, and cause, his closet was like his bedroom was like a garage that was converted into a room and the back of it was like a storage closet, and so I was sitting there and then he had his desk and we would just play games together or whatever, and that was that was how that came to be. I was sitting on his floor with my computer on like a coffee table in front of me, and that's what. That's how it happened, literally two words.

Scarto46:

So like, diluted, like you can, it is something that is soluble, right, like you can dilute it. And then spine, which, like, could have a bunch of different definitions, but I assume in your head you were thinking like, uh, your spine, like your skeletal spine no, it wasn't even that deep. I was just like this sounds good and that's what I used, and you're just like in a headspace of like I like letters and then I just give me two words and I'll use that and I didn't think it was gonna stick or anything.

Dilutedspine:

It just like and now that's like so diluted has become like everything. Now where I like if I build a new pc, it's diluted gaming pc or diluted pc. My, all my server stuff, like in my home lab for messing with computers is like diluted DCO one, diluted hypervisor, diluted hypervisor two or what all it's all become like. It's all encompassing. Now everything gets named diluted and then whatever it actually is for the most part so like. It has become like just a random word picked out off of the top of the list, like became like censored in my whole life.

Scarto46:

Have you ever? Yeah, that that's, that's insane, I mean. But have you ever had this? I mean, this is how it works for everybody. Right, like it became a thing that you are right, it's totally, I totally get that, um, I mean. But, like you know, I've had this trouble before.

Scarto46:

Like mine's a scarto 46, right, and so the numbers at the end for me kind of came in the aspect of like all right, well, most times when I type in scarto, um, it's not available. I, in whatever game I'm trying to play, you know. So I got really used to like all right, well, I need to put numbers on it. So scarto 46 is just like a natural thing. That kind of happened over time. Right like, I just kind of I couldn't put in the word. Have you ever had that challenge when you're like trying to like sign up for something or like cause it's very unique? Right Like I've never met another diluted spine. Like I don't. I couldn't imagine there being an enumeration of like. Oh yeah, that's diluted spine 10,000. Right, like that's probably a very singular type of.

Dilutedspine:

There isn't. It is always available, and the only time it's not available is when I go to sign up for something that I already signed up for and didn't realize I had an account already. That's the only time I'll get like, hey, this is in use.

Scarto46:

That's amazing, that's that's crazy, dude. I mean I can't imagine what it's like to have a name that's so singular like, because I've always like run into that problem. So I mean, so we I'm gonna like switch gears a little bit, but we were kind of just talking about this, but, like, at what point did like diluted spine shift from being just like a username you picked off a random word generator to like something and something that you were wearing to play orange box on steam Right, to like a thing that fit you Like what? Is there like a moment in your mind where that like sticks out? You like what? Is there like a moment in your mind where that like sticks out? You're like yep, this is the moment where people started calling me deluded in real life, for real all the time.

Dilutedspine:

Um, I don't know about, I think maybe people there were people that call me deluded because of like skype channels that I would be in so like back in the day for folks that I don't know. The discord didn't exist. You could use like team speaker or something like that, but you had to host a server for it. So a lot of the guys I played games with there was like five or six of us would play starcraft 2 and like the early 2010s and I was deluded spine in there and they would call me deluded.

Dilutedspine:

Um, but I think it really didn't stick as like a persona and it's not really a persona, it's just because, like I am my authentic self, like both online and in person. Like it's the same person. There's not like a character or something, um, but uh, I think when in like late 2012, early 2013, when I started getting into streaming and started getting involved in like professional starcraft 2 stuff, like briefly for about a year, I did like shout casting, like amateur shout casting for matches, and that was when it like kind of stuck. Now it was on liquipedia because I was on a casting team and so like there was some like documentation officially saying like this person exists as diluted spine, works with planning, casting, like etc. Etc. Um, and that's kind of when it stuck with like early 2013, when I was like starting to stream and stuff. I think it's when it really became like a real thing.

Scarto46:

Dude, I have to ask like OK, so shout casting was not like a thing. I thought where we would go in this conversation and so like, could you?

Ryanocerus:

give us know what that is.

Scarto46:

Yeah, what is shout casting, and could you give us a sample of shout casting?

Dilutedspine:

is yeah, what is shout casting? And could you give us a sample of shout casting? Uh, I mean, so for me I was paired with the guy who was running this. Um, this like so shout casting for starcraft is like the way I was doing it with these guys was you would watch replays of like tournament play and then you dialogue over it. So like there was shout casting where you could do it live, but I was never going to live events to do it um, and back then you didn't really have the like kind of how today, after the pandemic and stuff, things can be organized remotely online pretty easily.

Dilutedspine:

Like that really wasn't a thing in the pro scene for starcraft 2, especially for the us scene. It was mostly watching replays and then me and this guy Shaft would talk about the gameplay and so I was color commentary where I would like shit talk and like I would do light analysis, like I still knew what was going on, but I wasn't like hyper technical on strategy, but I could tell when somebody botched something and I would like dog them about it from the casting table. Essentially, traditionally you would be doing it like live in person or live like as a tournament viewer and there was some opportunities for that. But by the time I got to the point where I would be able to maybe run casting for events that were being held online, I was kind of getting serious in my career and it was. It was getting to the point where it was eating up a lot, of, a lot of time and I didn't have the time to deal with it and also like work professionally. So I kind of cut that out, so you were.

Ryanocerus:

You were Jerry the King Lawler. Yeah, that's where I was, pretty much Jim Ross.

Scarto46:

So like for you all right. So shout happens, boom, your name is becoming more of a thing that you associate with and people are associating that with you in a much broader way. But like I mean you know I've been engaging with you previously A lot of people just know you as diluted like or diluted spine Like. Actually, most people that I've met who know you on the internet only refer to you that way, like they actually have no idea Like, even if they actually even know your real name, they actually only call you deluded. You know what I mean. So like. So it like started to fit, I guess, in this like origin story somewhere around shoutcasting and engaging with a larger internet community than just yourself or your friends. Right, like from high school.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, exactly, and and even my friends from high school, like online, will call me diluted, like my best friend calls me diluted, when we're in discord together, even though, like, we see each other in person like three times a week or whatever and do stuff together all the time, like it's still like I'm still deluded online. Um, and I think that part of that too. Like we talked, I mentioned the pandemic earlier. Like part of, I had no difficulty in the pandemic when it came to like not socializing externally of the house, because I spent so much time in these online communities as me, you know, hanging out with people and like it was just, oh, I do that twice as much now, instead of going out of the house two days a week or whatever.

Scarto46:

So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like so. So we, we, you kind of talked about this early on, whenever you were talking about um getting started with you know, your friends and like um kind of early stages of the internet, Right, and like I mean you, you've been on the internet like your whole life, right, like, I think, rhinoceros, talking about this early on, like we all kind of grew up around this thing where it was totally normal for I actually didn't.

Dilutedspine:

That's the crazy part. Like I didn't have, we had dial-up. I didn't have internet until 2009, when I moved into town. Basically I had internet at work where I was working, but I didn't really game online. I didn't have much of an online presence until 2009 when I got my first apartment, so like that was that was, so I was actually offline like terminally my whole childhood. Basically we did have dial-up towards my teenage years, but I just it was such a hassle to use and it didn't really it didn't work well when internet in 2008 was already like moving on to DSL and so like websites were not performing on 56 K modems at all, so like even normal shit wouldn't load so well like, where did this?

Scarto46:

so when you you're on the internet, you're you're diluted spine, right. Your, your diluted spine, right. You're like kind of in that time period, like where, where do you start? Like, how do you go about the process of like getting a better perspective of yourself? Cause, for those people who may not know you, in general, right, like, you're perceived as a person who's a pretty chill community person who likes to engage engage with different types of communities. You're very diverse in like how you, how you work through that stuff. You're a person who contributes back to charities. You're a person who is passionate about supporting gaming charities who are giving back to children, and like all this stuff that you are like kind of comes out of this time period of you like figuring yourself out in this big Internet space that's kind of growing around you, like in your apartment years, right, like, what's that process like of like getting a better perspective of self from the digital universe, I guess, right.

Dilutedspine:

Um, I think it. I think like my personality. I grew into who I am because of it. Right, like I was, I was not nearly a social in person. Like I was very awkward and, like rhino can speak to it, he knew me back then like was, yeah, well, you then, but but uh, I was like weird to talk to and didn't know how to handle people. And then, like started spending tons of time playing games online. Mind you, it was like halo and call of duty, lobbies and just like obscenities being screamed a lot of the time. But like that, that constant interaction online like forced me into like not an online persona, but like I as a person, got a ton of cycles talking to people and like and working with people, and I've always been a.

Dilutedspine:

I always thought I was an introvert, but apparently everybody thinks I'm an extrovert. Maybe I just like to be at home, so maybe I'm just a homebody but also extroverted. I don't know. But I think a lot of that came out of like talking to people online and get like I'll hop into discord and talk to total strangers. I've been playing games with total strangers and like our local city discord just because they're on and they're playing something I play Like. I don't know if that's normal, but that's kind of what I do, like I'm not, I don't need to do that, it's just fun for me to go like meet these people and learn about people and stuff and I think that's really interesting, right.

Scarto46:

Like, do you sort of like in life, do you describe yourself as an introvert, like, so, like put them side by side like you in life and your diluted spine persona Is one of them an introvert and one of them an extrovert and like how they engage and do they engage differently.

Dilutedspine:

I thought they were both introverts, but apparently I'm not an introvert.

Ryanocerus:

according to my wife and according to my friends, I Apparently, I'm not an introvert.

Dilutedspine:

According to my wife and according to my friends, I would say you're an introverted extrovert. That works, yeah, that that that makes sense to me but that's like yeah that's like both real life person and and online, though Like I'm the same person between the two environments. Like I don't really I don't context switch in any meaningful way between online and offline spaces. Really I don't context switch in any meaningful way between online and offline spaces.

Ryanocerus:

so you said you got your first real internet in 2009, um, and that's uh. I was doing some uh back back of the napkin math here. Um, because diluted spine and I were roommates in 2009. Um, so I'm guessing that that first internet was when we lived together oh yeah, that was the first time I had ice be internet. Yeah, it was when we moved in together and that internet wasn't even that good, I mean, it was decent, it was 1.5 million down, I remember. I was so excited.

Dilutedspine:

I was like wow, I could watch YouTube, I mean, and that was 2009, so that was probably.

Ryanocerus:

I mean, we had, you know, four of us living in there. We had, we each had our own connection, we each had connection and we each were, you know, gaming it. You know, often at the same time as and I don't think we ever ran it ran into any issues.

Dilutedspine:

That's just well no that it's because each of us had our own line oh yeah, we all had our own modem in each of the bedrooms, because that's how the apartment like for that college. Okay, sure, sure, I couldn't Mind you. We were in a college apartment complex. I did not go to college there, I was just a guy living.

Scarto46:

We have seen the tag Deluded Spine across Twitch, across Reddit, like even your creative work right and working on designs. So like what does it mean to carry that same identity across so many spaces? Does it feel like a brand, or like a signature, or like just something else entirely?

Ryanocerus:

I'm super interested in your thoughts because I struggled with this brand question a little bit.

Dilutedspine:

It's just a. It's just a different way to name myself. Like it's still I. It has become a brand, right, because like you put it on things you're putting yourself out there and like especially in the streaming space like. But like it wasn't the intention to become a brand, it's just once I started using it, I unified behind that and it just because of how my brain works. It's easier for me to just use that for everything, at least for the gaming side of it.

Dilutedspine:

I mean personal accounts and shit, don't use that. But like, at least for the gaming side of it. I mean personal accounts and shit, don't use that. But like, um, like for like real life things, right, but like anything, gaming and Twitter, reddit, all that stuff is just that, because that's just convenient for me and that's how it's always been, and so it. It didn't really start out as like a uh in my head as as a brand, because it was all utilitarian. When I made the name, I was like, oh yeah, I needed a name. Now I have this name, right. And so it very quickly became like the solution for any username problem for the most part and for at least for gaming stuff, right. And then it just kind of picked up as an identity.

Scarto46:

So OK, we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back. We're gonna do, we're gonna talk more about uh, diluted spines, kind of like persona and vibe and some streaming pieces, um, and his experience streaming and some cool moments he had, uh in tarkov, um. So we're gonna take a quick break, come right back and then we'll get into the next set of the podcast. A lot about starcraft, like what was your uh, what was your your? Your main was it like, were you toss? Were you tearing? I was pro, pro toss, yeah, pro toss oh yeah see I was tearing.

Scarto46:

Well, you had to have that, that that big tearing energy. You know they got to do tanks. I don't think I ever actually won anything because toss always always destroyed me but or Zergs because it took me too long to build. But that's when I gave up on strategy games and decided to like actually I don't know play games on console and just jam. That way I think Starcraft broke me from wanting to play more PC games.

Dilutedspine:

The last time I played console regularly was when I lived with Rhino in like 2009, 2010. And after that I basically completely moved to PC Like totally.

Ryanocerus:

I didn't know what a Terran or a Tarnak was. I didn't play StarCraft. I played it like once or twice, but I think I was so late to the game that I was just getting my shit pushed in and it was not fun. I have anger issues when it comes to video games that I was just getting my shit pushed in and it was not fun and I don't, uh, I, I have uh anger issues when it comes to video games. Um, so I don't, I don't, uh, I don't. I've learned not to play things that make me angry anymore.

Dilutedspine:

I've I've witnessed ryan ryan rhinoceros taking a controller by its cable, back when controllers were cabled still an xbox controller and like swinging it above his head and smacking it into like our concrete steps of our apartment until it just exploded. And then he came back upstairs he was like I don't have another controller, can I borrow one of yours?

Ryanocerus:

he's like I won't destroy it, I promise I don't remember what even set me off that much that's called duty black ops.

Dilutedspine:

Man, that sounds always pissed you off sounds accurate sounds accurate so I kind of want to like all right.

Scarto46:

So have you ever thought like what does a diluted spine look like? Like what is like? What does it look like?

Dilutedspine:

I know, not really, because it's just me. I just look at me seriously.

Scarto46:

We know I actually have okay, so like on the internet, right, like your persona. Like you're into like cars. You're into like wave frame, uh, waveform. You're into vapor wave. You're into like lo-fi stuff. You're into Vaporwave. You're into like Lo-Fi stuff. You're into different types of games. You're into Tarkov and Destiny and all kinds of stuff. You're into like talking about random things on Reddit and like I guess I can see like from your perspective. Like why that? Like, but what are? Like when you think about visualizing it? Like what is it when you think about visualizing it? What is it? Three words top of your head right now.

Dilutedspine:

How would you describe that Just?

Scarto46:

descriptors. Sure, just throw some words out there.

Dilutedspine:

I'd say cyborg, probably hard sci-fi, and then space. Those are things that heavily interest me, probably like hard sci-fi and then like space would be like. Those are like things that are like heavily interest me and what is what is hard sci-fi? It's like foundation, you know, like hard, like hard sci-fi okay, let's forget the hard sci-fi, let's just say sci-fi and let's just say cyborg sci-fi and tactical doesn't look like I'm looking up, I'm googling, I'm goog cyborg sci-fi and tactical.

Ryanocerus:

Does it be like I'm looking up? I'm googling? I'm googling hard sci-fi. Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic.

Scarto46:

Oh, okay, so like you're like an interstellar kind of person. Yes, yeah, you want your sci-fi to be accurate.

Ryanocerus:

So like if you're an interstellar you're like an interstellar kind of person. Yes, yeah, all right.

Dilutedspine:

What's your sci-fi, to be accurate, so if you're an interstellar, you're like Targe yeah, exactly, I mean so like think of, have you seen, uh, have you seen expanse? Like expanse does a good job of capturing, like really the realism of what space travel would be like at that scale, like the, the level of g forces, and like how to compensate for them and how they're planning routes through a solar system based off of, like, the gravity of planet.

Ryanocerus:

I like the laser-focused finale You're more the Martian and less Star Wars.

Dilutedspine:

Sure, but the Martian's pretty pedestrian in the grand scheme of things.

Ryanocerus:

I hope the Martian guy's not listening to this.

Scarto46:

He'll be upset.

Dilutedspine:

Put an Irishman from Boston on Mars and made him grow potatoes like come on and irish people love potatoes, man.

Ryanocerus:

No, they're preparing for a second famine. They're getting ready. When we're starving in america and ireland's just rolling like scrooge mcducking into piles of potatoes, then then we'll see who's laughing.

Scarto46:

So like, are you like out there watching the NASA channel Like all day, every day, not all day, but I do watch that kind of shit.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, Like I'll throw like the live streams on, especially when they're doing like space walks or something like that. That's like shit. I'm really into that's. I really like space stuff, Like stuff like that's why I said that.

Scarto46:

like sci-fi, like space kind of stuff is very much like important to my persona. So, like you do, here's what I want to know right, you, you like, get the opportunity to do space travel like you're out there right in the expanse, or maybe maybe you're not a cyborg and you're like a person and you're traveling with tars and interstellar and this is the vibe you're in is on your ass, like your name tag on your on your astronaut suit. Right, is that your real name or is that diluted spine? It would probably be.

Ryanocerus:

If he's a cyborg, does he need an astronaut suit? He's not a cyborg. We just established the character sorry, I I mean there were so many t words that were said I my brain just like turned off if it's me, it's gonna be my last name, right, like I think that that would be.

Dilutedspine:

I don't think that's a persona. I would use like it'll say spine, yes, spine, yes, corporal spine sergeant spine.

Ryanocerus:

So we get to your iteration even better.

Scarto46:

Yeah, sergeant spine yeah um, all right, so people centric, right, like one of the things is you know that we, we I think we all have an identity that we know about. On the Internet we play a lot of games. I grew up in a world where my brother and I I don't really jive on single player games. I never have. I'm always for me in doing game design and doing engaging with others.

Scarto46:

Even from the time, like when I was young, I wanted to be a journalist and what I wanted to do was interview game developers about why would you make that thing and what are you trying to say to people. I was fascinated by that because I wanted to understand why someone would make something for someone else to walk through or create a space where other people could engage with other people in a way that they designed or created. Right when I got into games, my getting into games was always about engaging with other people and like just playing and like trying to figure out, like how to do something together, how to jam on a prop, and that like translated heavily into how I, how I work, how I think, how I engage with problems. So my question at the end of this big statement is that a similar way that you think about how you engage as diluted spine with games or communities or whatever um on the internet.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, so every and this is even beyond just games near it like everything is a human related system. Right, because we've built all these systems. We interact with all of them, whether it's games, whether it's work, whether it's like software on your phone, whatever, whatever. Um, I think that people lose sight of that and I try to keep people grounded in that even, especially like in gaming communities, like it's really easy for folks to go into a space and say some heinous shit and just act like those aren't people. On the other end, that you're saying just the most obscene garbage to, for no reason, people you don't even know, right, like and so like.

Dilutedspine:

While I do, while like online gaming, like is my, it's like 80 of my stuff, I, I of like my gaming activities, probably even more than that, to be honest, I I don't see how this world would function for us if it wasn't like the people right, and so it's really it's. It's a constant struggle for me to like interact with strangers and push them to like be better, even though, like it doesn't really impact me anyway long term, whether they are or not. I just feel like society as a whole if you don't hold everybody accountable and like push folks to improve their way they treat others. Like you're eventually going to have like constant degradation of how people treat each other Right and so, like games are really. It's really interesting because you can get into a lobby and play with a bunch of people that are like really cool, cooperative and like collaborative and like are cheering each other on and then the net, like Counter-Strike is great.

Dilutedspine:

At this Counter-Strike You'll play a match. There'll be some great player who's like helping the team, bringing everybody with them, like treating the game as if their interactions in the game, as if it is a society and like we're trying to improve society as a group, and the next match you'll have the most toxic head who's like bottom fragging, not helping, and then also like being a shithead to everybody in the same game. 10 minutes later it's yeah. So it's really interesting how the and that person. You don't know anything about that person and a lot of people will just assume, oh, they're a head, but that person probably has a miserable personal life and like right, right, their derived enjoyment is from making other people miserable. If you can like dig into those people and get them to talk like you'd be surprised what you can find behind some of them when you're not also just trying to shit talk directly to them.

Scarto46:

You know like do you ever feel like you're engaging with people on the internet and you're using that personality or that persona? You have to help someone through a problem and you're just. You're a thing that they need you to be.

Dilutedspine:

You're a person with your own thoughts and problems and all those things right, but like you know, like you're, you can also be a you know, a support system for someone or yeah, I mean, I'm an empath, right, so like that that it's very easy for me to go into a situation with someone and try to figure out and understand where they're coming from, even if they don't want to tell me, right, or they aren't openly saying that. Like I've had enough interactions with people, like because I've historically I've worked in people facing roles, even though I'm an engineer by trade like all of my roles have been talking to tons and tons of people every day. For the most part, up until like the last five years or so, I got more into internal stuff. But, like I've probably had conversations with I don't I can't even begin to tell you I would talk to a hundred different people a day in my first job. That I did for like two years. So, like you, you five days a week, like 500 people a week like that scales really quickly, cause it's, and so, like you end up being keenly aware, especially after that much repetition, of how people are feeling about stuff.

Dilutedspine:

You can read people and, like I use that in online spaces to try to sometimes see where people are feeling about stuff.

Dilutedspine:

You can read people and, like I use that in online spaces to try to sometimes see where people are coming from and like and and like, try to empathize with why folks might act the way they are, as long as they're not being like there's a difference between being like difficult and maybe you're just neurodivergent and people don't understand that, and like you need someone to help you like know how to act in social situations, versus like I.

Dilutedspine:

I often see where, especially with neurodivergent folks, um, that you can tell. I'm not a doctor, but you can tell. Sometimes with folks like, oh, this person just doesn't know how to socially interact, they probably have some kind of neurodivergence. People don't understand that and they just like target them or like, oh well, this guy's just difficult to deal with. It's you can tell and then if you can work through that with people, even if it is only for a 10 minute period, like I think it makes them feel better, makes them feel like oh, maybe there is like folks out there that aren't just gonna immediately dismiss me because I'm difficult or whatever.

Scarto46:

Right, like, do you feel like that's why you got into streaming? It's because you were trying to build a place like. So you, you know, you you'd seen a lot of places where you were trying to fit in and you were trying to build a place where other people could fit in, right like, because maybe you know, in that concept, right like, maybe streaming is is more like you being able to build a community or a place where people can be part of that community it definitely didn't start like that.

Dilutedspine:

it wasn't altruistic like that in the beginning, but probably in like 2015 2016, when I was further into it, I started like doing dedicated days every week where I just like talked to chat instead of and like I didn't play games, I would eat like chicken wings and talk to twitch chat and I had enough viewers that I could do that and I'd have people pop in and like that was like probably my most prolific time on Twitch was doing that kind of stuff and and it was partially that like just talking people through life problems or whatever dumb shit like that, like not like in any serious way. But yeah, it eventually became that.

Scarto46:

So that's cool, man. I mean like you were just just chatting before.

Dilutedspine:

Just chatting was a thing I don't do that stuff anymore but because of the games that I play, like tarkov. I play tarkov on stream and tarkov has a lot of downtime, so like you might spend 20 minutes in a row and 30 minutes setting up for it, so you talk to people while you're doing that setup and that kind of leads to the just chatting infusion without you having to be in a just chatting category, right?

Scarto46:

so you ever think that like someone somewhere that you talk to while you were eating chicken wings on stream, like you know, I mean, everything's about making ripples right. Like you're, you're positively or negatively influencing people with your actions, and so do you ever think someone is out there somewhere and they're like you know what? That diluted spine person was pretty dope and they really helped me with this thing I was going through on this day. You ever like, look at it that way that your persona is like is like that too.

Dilutedspine:

You know there was a few. There was like there's a couple people that like there was this kid that was getting out of high school that I used to. It was one of my viewers. Actually there's a couple dudes I met through twitch that were like they were like teenagers and trying to figure out life and stuff and it was kind of interesting to talk to them and be like hey, like I'm an adult, Like if you need an adult to like blow shit through on Twitch chat, just tell me about it and I'll like talk through seven. So there was a couple of kids that I talked through stuff with. One of them I still talk to him. He's like a full blown adult. He's off doing like farm equipment it. I also had a.

Dilutedspine:

I had a viewer that would beg to see me blow vape on my feet and became like a became like a super meme and that that same viewer would like beg me to write them love letters and like ask me to like they would pay me love letters, and I'd be like no, he's like well, I'll pay you to blow vape on your feet, and I'm like all right. And so I did that and that became like a huge meme on my channel for a while, until I quit smoking.

Ryanocerus:

So we could, uh, we could spend bits, I think like the channel points to get channel points and you can get vape foot.

Dilutedspine:

I would like bring my foot up on camera and then blow vape foot. I would like bring my foot up on camera and then blow vape through my toes it was the most atrocious thing I've ever witnessed there's probably there's plenty of twitch clips out there, yeah, but I definitely probably bought at least one of those absolutely man, uh, so you were you're making, you're like doing real content creation then, right, that was before.

Scarto46:

Uh, was it only feats? Is that what? Uh, this was before? Only finder, I think, is what it was. Yeah, uh, so over the like last few years, you've streamed 57 different games, right, you've racked up thousands of hours. You've talked about how you were consistent with your community. You built a space for people. Are there any moments that stick out like in your head about, like man, I just like there's this moment that happened on stream and I just want to talk about it, like you might have mentioned previously, like when we were warming up, like, uh, a tarkov voiceover thing. Do you want to like set the stage of this and like how this, this moment, happened?

Dilutedspine:

so, tarkov has historically did not have a way to talk to people in the game. You only had character models that could make hand signs, and they had a lot of hand signs where you like wave or shoot the finger or whatever, like point in a direction, but there was no. And there was like voice lines that the game had, but you couldn't just voip people because there are legal requirements in the country of Russia around. If your software has voice over IP communication capabilities in it, you have to record and store all of those conversations, and so Battlestate Games did not want to deal with that for the longest time and so they just didn't have VoIP in the game. I want to say it was 2021, mid-2021. One of the wipes they introduced voice over IP, but it was only proximity chat so you could just talk as if you were shouting at somebody nearby. But it was awesome because PMCs and scavs, which are two separate factions that kind of, fight each other in the game.

Dilutedspine:

For those who aren't aware Player scavs, so player scavs, so player scavs are supposed to try and kill the pmcs. Take their gear, vice versa. Well, we were in a raid right after this wipe and it was um, me and three other buddies were pmcs and we came across a group of scavs and you could collaborate with scavs like their scav extracts for co-op and stuff like that but people these are other other players that you met, players playing as scavs that are supposed to be our enemies, right, and so we start talking and we're on this map called lighthouse that has these bots that are really difficult to kill and then, but they have a lot of good loot and they're guarding this entire water treatment facility and so we collaborated with the scavs and using voip and we ended up with three separate four player groups of scavs and four pmcs running into this fucking extremely difficult area that had just and and wiping all of the bots with all the good loot and just like hanging out with 16 players total, which was just unheard of before in that game. Like you didn't have 16 players doing the same thing together in that game. So it was like really cool.

Dilutedspine:

I have a picture somewhere of like a bunch of us that we they all posed up around like a hill and everybody was standing there like thumbs up, and like I got that, I screen grabbed that and like I have a video of it somewhere that I was supposed to edit down and I just never got around to. But it was like my first, like that was the first time in Tarkov where we got to just interact with the general community of the game in a way that wasn't like a bunch of angry assholes on Reddit or Twitter or whatever, screaming about whatever thing they didn't like. So it was really cool.

Scarto46:

So like what kind of people find you right, like we kind of talked about this a little bit like in your streaming days, and like your, you know, your community, you build. But like what kind of people like connect to diluted spine, like online, yeah, yeah yeah, like there's probably a certain type of person that you're like yep, this is, this, is my people, right, or these are the kinds of people who find you a lot, a lot of neurodivergent people, from what I can tell.

Dilutedspine:

Well, do you think it's because you're an empath and like you're, because, like I don't push folks away, that like cause, like you know, some people will like not, just don't have the tolerance for it or don't understand it. Right, like and so it's.

Scarto46:

it's or maybe don't even have the language to even understand. Yeah, yeah.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, to even understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like I know, nowadays it's like like people all are like, oh yeah, I'm on the autism spectrum, they're all on the autism spectrum and that's probably true, but like the, the, just the neurodivergence in general is like like my best friend is like he's got brothers who are like nonverbal autistic. Like like I've got so many people in my life that are in that space, like guys I worked with that people were like, oh he's, he's so annoying I don't want to deal with him. Blah, blah, blah. And it's just that they just he just needed coaching.

Dilutedspine:

Like I have guys that I've like coached on like how to be in social settings and how to interact with people in a way that's not going to annoy the shit out of everybody because there's spent any time, especially people in our age group. Like nobody was spending time. People were, but not like yeah, it wasn't full, it wasn't understood as well as it is today and people didn't have the empathy to do it. And I'm not saying that not, there are people out there that are our age, that had parents that recognize what it was and instead of doing the whole no, that's not real. I don't believe that. Blah, blah. And then turning out this human into the world who like doesn't know how to deal with anybody, can't handle like emotional situations, shuts down and stuff like that. Like those folks I get it, I get how they got there and like try to help people like that through situations like that. Like I think at least I hope, I'm doing that- Like it feels like it anyone can do, right?

Scarto46:

I mean, that's why I was asking the question earlier about like you know, uh, like, do you perceive your persona as like being a North star for people? Because, you know, I think in the times I've engaged with you, you really are an empath, you, you really do like care about people and you build relationships deeply with people, or they, or I should say people, build relationships deeply with you, right, yeah, they do. And so, like I think that's a very natural thing and that's a super cool thing, man, and it's also really cool to like be inclusive and respectful of like everyone, Like everyone's going through something or got something going on, Right, like I don't know. I'm with you on the whole mindset of like you can't live in this world where, like people are different and you should judge them for being different, and yeah, a lot of people think you can just operate and operate in black and white, though and it really just doesn't.

Dilutedspine:

That's not a human thing, and I think people want to operate in black and white.

Ryanocerus:

It's easier.

Scarto46:

Yeah, I mean if everything is like true or false light, switch on or off. Yeah, everything's easy, but the world's a thousand shades of gray. There's no one that's the same.

Dilutedspine:

Everyone's all different. That behavior doesn't bring society along with you, though, either. That's like the whole individualism thing we're like well, I did this, why can't everybody else do it? Like, that type of like attitude about stuff just doesn't. It doesn't translate to real life success for society as a whole.

Ryanocerus:

so it's been a really, uh, fun discussion. Um, I know that scardo and myself both know diluted pretty well um, and have known him for quite a few years. But I hope this was something that you know, other people can latch on to and, you know, get to know him a little bit through this. Um, we're going to roll into a little bit of reflection and then our re-roll segment. Let's say you had one shot to re-roll your digital self, would you keep your diluted gamer tag or would you craft something completely new? Now that we also know that this kind of came from a random generator, do you think you would do something different?

Dilutedspine:

no, I don't think so it, it, it's so. Uh, it's such a comfortable thing. Like I don't, I don't, would never see myself changing. I've had like randomly made joke names and stuff on, like steam or whatever, like champion, pizza nips or whatever shit like that.

Ryanocerus:

Like you've seen some of the insane stuff that I've had in discord, like uh, the pale, well, I believe was one of them, was one of them, but yeah, I believe mine would stay forever, like I don't see that you would keep it the same, but how do you know you would get the same random names. It's kind of a oh, I see what you're saying yeah like, would you would?

Ryanocerus:

would that be your approach? I guess would you say cool, I don't know what I want this to be, I'm just gonna get on a random name. I mean, they have, they have those obviously still if.

Dilutedspine:

If it didn't roll off the tongue so well, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it. But like it's it's short on syllables, like really easy to say, it's shortened easily, like it was very it's a very convenient name. Like if it was I don't know meat sack blimp or something like that or whatever, I wouldn't have kept it. Blimp is a strong ass game.

Dilutedspine:

Put that one in the pocket, some guy you're gonna see in the crucible and destiny too and he's like clearly cheating too you think that diluted spine is easy to say and rolls off the tongue and it's short I thought so yeah, diluted spine. It's what? Two syllables diluted? No, I guess that's two syllables and spine is one syllable. Right, diluted spine?

Scarto46:

yeah, I think that's pretty easy three syllables I guess my question is really all the things you're involved in, like design um car, all the stuff right hard sci-fi hard sci-fi, hard sci-fi. Would you partition your, your life, your engagement, by building different personas? Are you just like having them?

Dilutedspine:

all be one thing, it's all just one. I would just do it all one thing. I mean I've done like car content on YouTube, not not like seriously, just like vlogs from conventions and stuff and interviewing people and like it's all just under that same banner. I don't see myself ever having like. The only way I would see myself having a different thing is if I was presenting as like my real life identity for something like that's the only other way I could see doing that. Like all the other the, the, the directing like extra live streams for like that whole group, all that kind of stuff with the vaporwave magazine that I did, like that was all. Like that was all under diluted spine, that was all never gonna be under anything else.

Ryanocerus:

Like I would never consider not using that I think you're a lot like me, whereas you I mean, you have your digital online persona, but like it is you. You're not, you know, putting, putting on airs or, you know, even trying to be an actor of any kind. It's just like. This is me like everywhere.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, what you're getting right now is like exactly how I act at work and like in my personal life. So like, yeah, it's, it's all me right, and so just it makes sense to keep it under that would you change your legal name to diluted spine? No, I would not not that cool I think I've got a pretty cool name.

Scarto46:

To be honest, yeah, what about your middle name?

Dilutedspine:

yeah, sure, I'd consider that, but even my middle name is like your middle name.

Ryanocerus:

You sound like a cowboy your whole name.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I have a pretty cool name I like like real, real big energy to it.

Scarto46:

So all right, so so like what's next on? Like the roadmap for diluted spine. Like where does this, where does this name, your persona, go from? Here? Are you new designs, new stream. You're gonna like stream more consistently. Like where can people like connect to diluted spine?

Dilutedspine:

I mean Twitch is going to be basically the only place anymore, like I don't. I stopped frequenting X or Twitter. I don't have any like social media anymore. That's like a place to interact with diluted spine as diluted spine anymore, just cause, like all of the social media out there, it's just kind of gone to shit lately and I don't, I don't really use Tik tiktok and that seems to be like kind of the main place.

Dilutedspine:

Like I know that makes me sound like a 30 year old boomer or whatever, but like it just doesn't appeal to me and like I don't want to get sucked into like that doom scrolling and all that. So I've just twitch is probably the place to find me, um, which is just diluted spine on twitch, twitchtv slash diluted spine. Um, and I I have been revisiting streaming. I took a long hiatus over the last couple years. I had some just didn't, wasn't feeling it and personalized stuff going on and just like did not have the energy for it otherwise, um, I do stream like a couple times a month now, but it is not the cadence I used to be, which was like upwards of 20 to 30 hours a week on top of a full-time job, which was like and I I like, I like your streams diluted.

Ryanocerus:

I I oh, you know the game content's great, but I I always enjoy the just the hanging out and kind of just you know shooting the shit yeah, that's kind of like connection kind of thing is. I don't.

Dilutedspine:

I don't watch streamers for their incredible gameplay. There are people that do that. There are people that are there for the highly competitive watching someone that's really really, really good at a game play it. They're not entertaining for me. I'm trying to be entertaining. It's supposed to be laughs and giggles and stupid jokes and vape foot. For me, that's what's important.

Dilutedspine:

On twitch and a lot of the streamers I follow, it's that kind of like. Aqua fps is a great example where he's just like this dopey dude in his mid-30s who's like mediocre at tarkov but also really sweet and like kind and funny and like is not like there's not any ego to it or anything, like it's just him enjoying it and like being funny and goofy with people while his community is like heinously mean to him, but like he takes it on the chin and he's like really good sport about all of it and stuff. Like he's a great example of like the type of streamer that I want to be and strive to like do that type of like funny, like easygoing stuff. That that's not, he's not trying, it's just he like easygoing stuff. That that's not he's not trying, it's just he's just naturally like that.

Scarto46:

So, yeah, yeah, man, it's all about connection. That's what you're saying is like when you're, when you're watching someone you like, want to be able to identify or understand or connect with that person and, like I don't know, just jam with them right, like that's kind of what you're where you're coming from, exactly. Yeah, yeah, well, cool. So, uh, you can find diluted in the future on twitchtv, slash diluted spine. We'll make sure we have a link in the podcast for that and in our socials. But we're going to shift gears and go into re-roll on re-roll. We're going to take information that we have learned about diluted spine throughout this podcast your personality, traits, roles, your favorite genres and worlds, signature, style or vibe and visual inspiration and we're going to feed that into the machine, mystical machine AI and see if we can create an image of what the diluted spine persona looks like. What does it look like? You said yourself hey, I haven't ever thought about what it looks like, it's just me. So we're going to think about it.

Scarto46:

Live together on the air and we're going to insert this information and you get two re-rolls so the rules of the game diluted spine towards this information and you get two re-rolls so the rules of the game Deluded spine. We're going to make a first cut of this picture with the information that we've gathered. Then you have the opportunity to re-roll or stay where you're at. You only get two re-rolls and from this we'll make an official gamer tag, trading card of your digital persona that you'll get to see at the end. So are you ready to play? Yeah, of course I'm ready to go. All right, cool.

Ryanocerus:

All right, so we've got your. I took some notes while we were chit-chatting. I did not add anything off the cuff here, so you're welcome. Just some quick notes on just our conversations, key things that popped out to me and just to kind of help us with the description of what this card will look like. So, personality traits I wrote down extroverted, introvert and random. Um, you seem to, uh, you know, you're just interested in a lot of things and, uh, you just kind of described that a lot throughout this whole, uh, conversation. Preferred roles uh, support class empath you said both of those things multiple times.

Ryanocerus:

Favorite genres and worlds um, I wrote down chairs, canada documentaries and nasa live streams signature style vaporwave design language and vape foot um, and visual inspiration is cyborg, hard sci-fi and space yeah, okay.

Scarto46:

So what we're gonna do now you can see the prompt on the screen, right? Yeah, I can see it.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, okay so we're gonna take this no hold on, I'm not looking at your screen share. Sorry, I thought you're talking about the other thing.

Scarto46:

Okay, now I can see it yeah, okay, so so this we're gonna. We want to make sure you can see the prompt and what we're going to do with it, so we're going to take that information that Rhinoceros just outlined and we're going to bring that in to our machine. Here we go. Are you excited to see what happens here?

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, I haven't really messed with uh image generation too much in gen ai, so I'm curious what this comes up with I saw what it did to mine, so I'm real excited to see what um I'm gonna have one smoky ass foot or something.

Scarto46:

I hope it's just a big I hope it's a big foot with a face on it or something like a giant cyborg sitting in a chair here's the cool thing about this right, like, like we use Gen AI to do this, because Gen AI knows literally nothing about, we're feeding it traits and like we're going to, from that, like get a picture. It could be of anything and it will be totally unique to the prompt we created in this moment in time relative to you, and that's kind of a really cool, like weird, like interesting thing. So that's why we're doing it like with Gen AI, cause, like you know, someone could like draw you, but if they, if they draw you, I'd probably talk to him. You're like hey, I want to like can you draw me a certain picture? I saw Right or whatever Right, or draw me? And they're like they kind of know you, maybe Right. So now you're going to get this totally random type of vibe that fits all those things which I think you're already seeing it come up on the screen.

Ryanocerus:

here I'm seeing pinks and purples for vapor waves, so that's pretty open. I see some smoke.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, there is a smoke coming out of the mouth.

Ryanocerus:

There's smoke coming out of the mouth and on the back of something. What is that?

Dilutedspine:

I think it's the vape part. I hope it's a foot.

Ryanocerus:

Got some stars there, nice oh space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Dilutedspine:

Ooh, I like the helmet. This is a real strong start. Yeah, this is pretty good. Watch, it's just a big-ass foot for the lower torso. Yeah, I think that's the one.

Ryanocerus:

He's in a chair. Okay, it's a robot cyborg sitting in a chair. He's in a chair. Okay, it's a robot cyborg sitting in a chair. One of his feet is a robot feet and the other one is on fire. This is a vape foot, bro, that's what's going on here?

Scarto46:

This is an incredible picture so you can reroll. But you got to know that it could totally redraw this in a thousand different ways.

Dilutedspine:

I mean, I kind of like the, I like this. I don't want to re-roll and then lose access to this. I think this is the one. This is the.

Scarto46:

Here's what we'll do. We'll make this the one, but we can roll and see what other options there are. Yeah, let's see what the other options are.

Dilutedspine:

I think this is the one Sitting in a chair. All right, here we go.

Scarto46:

That is incredible. He's sitting in a chair posed up on some planet with the right vibes, so Deluded Spine. Do you feel like this? Is this like a good representation of you now, like, do you see your persona as this thing?

Dilutedspine:

yeah, I think so, yeah, that that's a pretty good representation of like you're gonna.

Scarto46:

You want to plaster this on your wall.

Dilutedspine:

You want this to be a poster I mean, yeah, if I had, I would probably put that back behind me here. It would be on the back end of the stream then.

Ryanocerus:

So I got you all right, let's, let's see, let's see what. Uh, let's see what it changed. It looks pretty similar, so far I would keep it similar.

Dilutedspine:

Yeah, I'm surprised. I expected it. Every time I've I've done image generation in uh in gemini and it just like loses the plot so quickly when you try to change something, so but it really is keeping the theme in. Editor Portabella here wanted to pop in and say that some of the audio got a little wonky here, so to clear any confusion the boys are now on their third roll.

Scarto46:

I think we're going to Hold on. We've got to.

Dilutedspine:

Oh, you want to re-roll it right.

Scarto46:

Yeah yeah, yeah. But what's going to happen here at the end is you're about to get a title and a backstory generated for Deluded Spine, so that'll all go on your official gamer-tagged trading card.

Dilutedspine:

And we called it too, that it was going to put my foot in vape all right.

Scarto46:

Now we've got some planets, some planets are happening yeah oh yeah with the

Dilutedspine:

planet better little planets, yeah, that's good.

Scarto46:

so you have this, uh, this original re-roll. It's got a little bit harder line, harder colors to it, but then we edited and we put him in a Virko chair, which I don't think there was a huge change maybe a little bit of color palette change in that, and then this is where we ended up.

Dilutedspine:

I actually think I liked the last one the best, with the different helmet and stuff. Yeah, all right, cool.

Scarto46:

All right, so we've used all of our re-rolls, so here's your final persona Deluded Spine. Deluded Spine, a vaporwave sentinel, a neon-lit cyborg empath, seated in stillness on a Virgo 9018 with a vape foot glowing beneath planetary skies Cool, well, hey look, you played reroll. What are your thoughts? Man, like you got to maybe make a crazy visual of the thing that you've been living under for the last 20 years I think it's good to like.

Dilutedspine:

I haven't really thought about the whole online persona thing that much and like how it all kind of ties to everything until we started talking about doing this podcast episode and that's what it kind of started thinking more about it. So I think it's put like a lot of perspective into um, like it does mean more, it means something, and I never I don't really think too much about it usually, you know. So it's kind of cool to to get that perspective on stuff. I enjoyed it.

Scarto46:

Yeah, man for sure, well, hey, thanks for joining us on episode two of the gamer tag podcast yeah, man, of course.

Scarto46:

Thanks for having me for sure and ryan osiris, thanks for joining as a co-host doing the re-roll documentation making it all happen. This is scarto 46 signing off. Thank you all for joining us for the gamer tag podcast and appreciate you. If you enjoyed today's episode, hit, follow on your favorite podcast, leave us a rating and share it with someone whose username has always made you curious. We drop new stories every other week featuring creators, gamers, streamers and digital personalities who shaped their identity online. Got a Gamertag story of your own or know someone we should talk to? Visit our link tree or our socials to reach out. You selected your character to find your tag and build your persona. Now come tell us your story. This episode of Gamertag was produced by Gamertag Studios, music by Ryan Osrus, editing and production by Isabella Sumner, visuals by Opal and Ink Design, hosted by me, scarto46. One tag down, a hundred more to discover, discover. See you next time, right here, where digital identities become real stories transmission ending goodbye.