Googling Me

This afternoon while whiling away my time I decided to Google my own name.

I thought I'd be presented with a list of articles about technology and companies - the dry business stuff I spend my days sifting through. But that isn't what happened. Sure, the first story was some one-off article about a random thing that was connected to Microsoft back in the day, but then the second was the most personal thing I'd ever written. Which had been posted to the internet about five years ago.

It tells the story of the accident I had when I was seven years old, and it was especially jarring to find that at the top of a list that essentially presented who I was to the world, according to Google.

In case your curiosity is now sparked beyond your ability to tolerate.


It's a pretty raw account of something that happened to me a long time ago, and something that has come up more frequently than usual in the past week. As I wrote in the essay, people are so inconsistent with when they think it's appropriate to ask that it always catches me off guard. And having to tell them about something so... well, traumatizing, is an odd cross that I seem to find myself bearing. You have no secrets when something is written across your face.

So, maybe I'm writing this to feel a little more in control of who finds it by putting it somewhere of my own - not at the top of 178 pages of google results.

Comments

Yo from a fellow Brooklynite.

Yes, of course I was curious. Horrific story.

I've signed up for Google Alerts on my name, which is unusual enough that I know where each of the half-dozen or so other folks with it live. Mostly what comes up is contributions to various news groups and such. Mostly short-tempered rants, occasionally stuff I would be proud to write today.

All our words will live forever on the Web. For better or worse.

Popular Posts