Since the announcement that we can now change our usernames, I have seen a lot of people change theirs. I have seen just about the same amount of people post polls and journals asking if they should change their username and if so, what to.

I will not change my username, not now, not ever. My username is my brand, both here and on the rest of the internet. (It just happens to be a typo to a cutesy name and gets taken on a lot of sites before I can get there.)

The key in my statement is that it is my brand. Your username is your brand on deviantART, alongside your icon. It's what people see to represent you.

I can understand that a certain aspect of deviantART is to allow artists to grow and develop  and mature and find their own brand. I can also understand that when you're a 20-something adult trying to apply for creative design pictures and your dA username is something like "xXnarutoxhinataKAWAIIXx" it can be really embarrassing and there is probably something better out there to represent your brand and you.

I'm not pro username changes, but I'm also not con username changes. I understand that there are certain circumstances that make username changes appropriate and sometimes needed. I also realize that once you have an established brand and repoitior with a certain username/brandname, changing it can put off your followers and make you harder to find.

In short, I just want to make sure that you seriously consider the pros and cons of changing your username before you make the change. There's no going back to the original and changing from "xXnarutoxhinataKAWAIIXx" to "narutoxhinata" is pretty much the same as not changing your username at all, in terms of maturity.

Be smart, don't rebrand without examining the consequences.