Usernames on a Finnish Online Marketplace for Illegal Drugs

Abstract

Usernames play a major role in online communication by providing a vital first impression and including clues about the identities and personal characteristics of users. Usernames are extremely important in the online trade of illegal drugs, which carries several risks and therefore requires a high degree of trust between the transaction parties. This study examines how sellers and buyers of illegal drugs represent themselves in their usernames. Data on 1,654 usernames collected from a Finnish darknet marketplace, Torilauta (2017–2020) are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The usernames are mostly in Finnish and often feature slang and spoken language expressions. Many names include clues about a user’s age, gender, and location. References to various illegal drugs in usernames were found to express a close relationship with the substances. In contrast, they only rarely utilize typical real-life marketing strategies, which suggests that the users do not seek publicity and do not wish to enhance their online reputation. Differences between drug sellers’ and buyers’ usernames are minimal, possibly because of group overlap. Overall, it appears that the users aim to blend in with the drug user community rather than stand out from it by building distinctive images of themselves.

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“…In the general market environment, consumer trust can be seen as a sentiment, belief, expectation or confidence about purchase intention or behavior (Roosen et al ., 2015). This trust is the basis of all transactions, including some unethical and even illegal areas (Hamalainen et al ., 2021). Some studies have suggested that trust is especially valuable in potentially risky environments (Earle, 2010; Pookulangara et al ., 2023) because every transaction has the potential to fail.…”

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“…Therefore, autonymic usernames may offer people an opportunity to express their identity or even to create an online identity that is separate from their offline identity (see also Aldrin 2016). The importance of this aspect of usernames may help to explain the high frequency of qualitative studies that seek to categorize the semantic contents of usernames or identify the motivations behind usernames to determine what these names may reveal about the users (e.g., Stommel 2007;Bechar-Israeli 1995) or the nature of the online communities involved (e.g., Hämäläinen et al 2021;Donlan 2017).…”

“…Many websites and online communities are based on a certain specific theme. Examples of the themes of the websites investigated in the article collection include immigration (Perelmutter 2021), soccer (Kytölä 2014), eating disorders (Stommel 2007), fanfiction (Donlan 2020(Donlan , 2017, crowdfunding (Jiang et al 2021), and illegal drug trade (Hämäläinen et al 2021;Hämäläinen 2019b). Research into usernames may provide valuable information about the specific cultures in these online communities.…”