Notoriety I Don’t Want and Didn’t Ask For

I’ve been very careful about not identifying myself online because:

1. I don’t want people from high school googling me
2. I may be paranoid
3. Except I google high school people all the time, thus they are likely to be googling me
4. And there are strange creepy people in the Internet, many of whom I have dated

Since I moved my website to WordPress, I’ve removed as many identifying features from my site as possible. I do not have my name associated with the site, and I never post pictures of people without their permission. The only photos I put online without permission are of dogs, because frankly, as dog-crazy as I am, even I have to acknowledge that dogs simply don’t care if they look a teensy bit fat in a particular picture.

Today I happened to google my cousin’s name. My cousin is over a decade younger than I am and has Asperger’s. She has never really understood why it is unsafe to post identifying features about yourself online. Currently you can find her name, email, photos of herself, birthdate, location, and high school online.

So I googled her to see what she had been up to, and to check if there was anything I should freak out about.

She had posted a lot more online since the last time I checked, about a year ago, but there was nothing alarming. At least, nothing MORE alarming than the details she had already provided a few years ago.

But the thought occurred to me that she had more of an online presence than I did. So I googled myself, just to make sure that was still true.

The first few google links were the same as the ones I’d seen the last time I googled myself — various director types and a computer scientist with my name (who, secretly, I hoped people from my high school would think was me). Then there was that link to a Boston Globe article I’d written. This was usually the only link that had anything to do with the real me.

Today, however, there was another link that linked to me. I was merrily skimming the links, jumping from my name to the next link with my name in it, when I suddenly stopped cold. There was my name. And beside my name was … “and Paco.”

“AND PACO?”

How many other mes were there who also had a dog named Paco!! Or even a boyfriend named Paco!!!

I clicked on the link and found, to my horror, an old photo of me (yes, and Paco) with Chris’s parents, sister, sister’s husband, aunt’s family, and grandparents. This was upsetting for several reasons.

1. I did not give permission for my likeness to be used. I do not want photos of myself online. None at all. I don’t care if I look goddamned sexy in that bikini I wore in Puerto Rico back in the days when my metabolism was quite happy to eat french fries and hamburgers without gaining an ounce, that picture’s not going online.
    
2. I did not want to be identified by my full name, so that every jerk from high school could look me up and laugh heartily, especially since the picture posted was NOT of me looking goddamned sexy in that bikini.
    
3. The picture was on a website for Chris’s grandmother’s maiden family’s reunion — the same reunion that we attended until I decided I was sick of being the only minority for miles around and being looked at as though I had accidentally wandered off my little junk a few stops too early. To which Chris would say I am overreacting, and to which I would counter that this is the same as when the waiters at the Chinese restaurants make a special point of giving him a fork.

   The picture was labelled as “The YY Family.” (Substitute his grandfather’s last name for “YY.”) There is a reason I kept my last name when I got married. The reason is that my name is my identity, and I see no reason why I should have to change that identity, because, people, times have changed and women no longer belong to men.

   And now here I am, on a website with Paco, identified as myself and simultaneously as belonging to my husband’s family.

   People may have a lovely vision of getting married and instantaneously becoming part of the family. But in-laws are called in-laws for a reason — they haven’t grown up in your family so they may not realize the way you say things is not actually meant as a put-down but as some kind of compliment. Sometimes life is nicer when a family treats an in-law a bit like a guest, and not so much as family.

   Chris pointed out that if my family had a similar picture of the extended family, they would also label it by the last name of the oldest person in the picture. I said, “Yes, and I would bitch about that because that’s not my name, either.”

I sent the link to my brother-in-law, who showed the picture to his wife. Chris’s sister immediately called her parents and told them to take the picture down, because she wasn’t keen on having her mother’s maiden name splashed all over the Internet, especially since the credit card companies like to use that information as a security check.

Until the picture goes down, though, those of you who know me in real life, and consequently what I already look like, can find it by googling my full name and “Paco.”

Posted by: ssjane | July 23, 2007 | 9:09 pm
Posted in: Rants