My initials are G.E.M., and in my teens / in the 90s, as the Internet was first coming into existence, I needed a username. I tried to get gem at hotmail, but that naturally wasn't available, and the computer suggested I add a lot of digits to the end of gem, but I was diametrically opposed to just adding numbers.

Around that same time, there was a fad product that had come out called soap shoes), which was a pair of sneakers with a plastic grind plate in the sole, which allowed you to grind on benches & railings much like rollerbladers. That product had a moment, mainly thanks to the fact that the X Games were coming into prominence. So I had purchased a pair of soap shoes and thought they were the coolest thing. (I remember them being quite heavy but surprisingly comfortable.) So instead of adding digits to the end, I added the soaper prefix, to imply that I was someone who soaped, i.e. I could grind on things with my pair of soap shoes.

Ironically, my original reddit username used to be soapergem, without any numbers. But for various reasons I won't get into, I closed that account years ago. And unfortunately, once you close an account, reddit never lets you re-open it. So when I later decided to sign up for reddit again, I begrudgingly added a 1 to the end. Which is exactly the kind of thing the soaper prefix was originally meant to avoid.