Google scares me!
I was doing some random searches in google a few minutes ago... you know, harmless stuff, looking for old fics I wanted to re-read by typing any phrase or unique name I could remember it had contained, and the like... when I thought: “wonder what will happen if I google my own nick?” The result was...disturbing. O_o
Anyjen is pretty much a unique nickname; so far, it’s never been taken anywhere I’ve tried to register, so if ever you come across it, chances are, it will be me. I have the same nick in ff.net, in youtube, in mininova.org, in deviantart, in mirc, as my e-mail address, and in several webpages I don’t frequent anymore (like neopets, for instance). So I thought it would be fun to see how many of those old webpages showed up in the search...
To my surprise and considerable horror, it wasn’t only those pages that showed up. Either my nick isn’t as unique as I thought it was, or somebody has been having fun at my expense by submitting it to the weirdest assortment of webpages they could think of, because for more than half of the links that showed up as search results I have absolutely no memory of having posted, registered, or even showed up there. And some of them are reeeeeeeally weird, too. O_o
It makes me glad (sooo glad) that I’ve always been paranoid about revealing my real name on the net (the “real” name I sometimes use when full name is required for registration was in fact chosen almost at random by flipping through the telephone book) or any other personal information... there is a grand total of one picture of me going around the net (one in which I’m wearing a stupid hat, in case you wanted to know), and the only real personal information available about me is my birthday and the name of the city and country I live in...
Plus really stupid and useless (though true) trivia, like the fact that I find guys who wear glasses attractive, and that I have the ability to scratch my entire back by myself. No stalker is going to be able to find the way to my home out of that information. Or probably want to. XD
Fortunately, a search with my real name, so far, only produced the webpage my university automatically creates for every student (which I’ve never bothered to fill in with personal information). That’s only very slightly reassuring. :P
I dare you to perform a search with your nick, and see if you're not absolutely freaked out by the results. Go on! try it! And then tell me about it, so we can freak out together. XD
Anyjen is pretty much a unique nickname; so far, it’s never been taken anywhere I’ve tried to register, so if ever you come across it, chances are, it will be me. I have the same nick in ff.net, in youtube, in mininova.org, in deviantart, in mirc, as my e-mail address, and in several webpages I don’t frequent anymore (like neopets, for instance). So I thought it would be fun to see how many of those old webpages showed up in the search...
To my surprise and considerable horror, it wasn’t only those pages that showed up. Either my nick isn’t as unique as I thought it was, or somebody has been having fun at my expense by submitting it to the weirdest assortment of webpages they could think of, because for more than half of the links that showed up as search results I have absolutely no memory of having posted, registered, or even showed up there. And some of them are reeeeeeeally weird, too. O_o
It makes me glad (sooo glad) that I’ve always been paranoid about revealing my real name on the net (the “real” name I sometimes use when full name is required for registration was in fact chosen almost at random by flipping through the telephone book) or any other personal information... there is a grand total of one picture of me going around the net (one in which I’m wearing a stupid hat, in case you wanted to know), and the only real personal information available about me is my birthday and the name of the city and country I live in...
Plus really stupid and useless (though true) trivia, like the fact that I find guys who wear glasses attractive, and that I have the ability to scratch my entire back by myself. No stalker is going to be able to find the way to my home out of that information. Or probably want to. XD
Fortunately, a search with my real name, so far, only produced the webpage my university automatically creates for every student (which I’ve never bothered to fill in with personal information). That’s only very slightly reassuring. :P
I dare you to perform a search with your nick, and see if you're not absolutely freaked out by the results. Go on! try it! And then tell me about it, so we can freak out together. XD