Ok I found out they use aMember, which is $179. Is there an equally as good but cheaper solution? I want something robust.
I did try deactivating all the plugins, and I thought that worked, but what I realized was it just wasn’t showing up (most likely), since it only appears on rare occasion.
I just realized now that there was also an admin registered that i did NOT create, so maybe that was the issue.
I guess I didn’t look hard enough. If anyone else with the same problem comes across this, the correct function is: the_author_nickname().
Woha! I didn’t even know you could do that in CSS!! thanks sooo much!!!!!