The best and earliest story I know about how important digital reputation management was/would become was the story of this guy from Cincinnati. He was this developer who decided that he wanted to rehab some theater in a really bad part of town there called Over the Rhine. City council cut him a nice big check and he took off. About a year later, a woman he was trying to date threw his name into Google and pulled up the fact that he was wanted. He got arrested and that was that. Damn funny.That was 5 years ago. Think about how far the Web has come since then in the sense of becoming a giant soapbox for whomever wants to say something about anything without having to ID themselves…effectively relieving them of any responsbility whatsoever.
I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing; freedom of speech is very important. And keeping the Internet a place where speech can be exercised to its fullest extent is very important as well. It does open up a realm of possiblities though when it comes to what floats out there about you…and permanently for that matter.
There are now companies that have been created around the idea of digital reputation management and keeping it clean. I just read about one that charges $1500.00 a month to repair any damage, and that’s only to guarantee that the first page of results will come up clean. Given that it takes about 2-3 months for results to begin to change in the search engines, there’s at least 3-4K in your pockets beore its all said and done.
What’s really interesting is I don’t think our Generation Y friends quite get it yet that a good portion of them will most likely be the ones that actually grow those companies into real profitability. From a marketing perspective, there are studies that show Gen Y has this somewhat unhealthy obsession with the idea of fame on whatever level they can get it. One only has to take a look at myspace to see how crazy it can get.
Man…maybe I’m in the wrong business.
Let’s take me as an example. If I throw my name into Google, the first things that come up are the fact that I’m an interactive project/product manager and that I play music…
…and then something random about me being a weirdo and needing a life. That has been a recent development, and one I brought down upon myself. Remember how I said something about how easy it is to throw things out there about anybody and anything? I did. Specifically, I did it here on this blog. I wrote about a girl I used to date (and lived with) in college. Note that I’m going to avoid using her name here because I’ll draw more unnecessary results to her name and probably cause her to fly off into some kind of crazy rage which could potentially result in my physical demise…
Anyway…
So by creating that post about her, either she or one of her friends found it and decided to retalitate by writing some pretty funny stuff about me.
Let’s play a little Q&A now, shall we?
- Andrew, did you spend time in Interwebz chat rooms?: Yep. True. I worked in a computer lab at the College of Applied Science @ the University of Cincinnati. My spare time was spent chatting with other goofs who were fascinated with the internet. Good times.
- Were you a Star Wars groupie?: I wouldn’t call myself a Star Wars groupie or anything…but I certainly dig Star Wars. Not ashamed, yo. The new Force Unleashed game is probably going to be my next game rental. Ha!
- Did you collect computer parts?: Yep. Previous to working in the computer lab, I worked for a place called Micro Direct where I sold and built computers during college. I made quite a bit of money, buying parts and building computers and then subsequently selling them to friends.
- Do you still hold a grudge against this girl?: Nope. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t care a whole heck of a lot less. I genuinely and truly hope that she is having a good/better life than she had when I knew her. Beyond that…it doesn’t really register as a blip on my previous life radar.
- Did you really post an “I Have No Life” revenge story about her?: Nope. But I did post a story about my time with her here. Someone else (her? her friend?) in her post called it a ‘revenge’ story. While most of my post about her is straight forward, I said a couple of more ‘kind’ things, like: “melissa was something else. she was older than me by five years. she was smart, confident and was one of the most talented and ambitious people in our program at school. the one thing i have to thank her for was that she gave me a little clout in my program, because as soon as i started dating her, the teachers all of a sudden started taking notice of me.” and, “but i don’t think i was sad about the fact that she was going to be out of my life. i was more sad that this talented, cool, attractive girl i had met almost two years earlier had taken such a terrible turn. it’s really awful to see a person self-destruct like that.” Note that I also removed her last name out of respect for privacy. I shouldn’t have used her last name. That’s really the only part I’m sorry about.
- Does your wife wonder if you have old feelings for other women? Nope. Actually, my wife supports my writing. Some of the music & lyrics I’ve written reflect on or are directly about other women and heartbreak and all that typical stuff that makes up a good portion of music out there (stupid heartbroken musicians).
- Did you create geochurn.com so you could “just…google [yourself] and get off on [your] self-created internet infamity [sic]: Infamity? Is that even a word. Well…to answer the question posed…nope. I didn’t really have to create this site to Google myself and have results come up. I’m just that cool that my name brings up some cool and amazing stuff without it. The funny thing is that geochurn doesn’t even COME UP as one of the first results. It’s on the second page of results.
- Are you”disturbed and need to seek therapy”? Nope. I mean…well…I’m disturbed by a lot of stuff, but certainly not ‘touched’ or anything like that, as the connotation of the word ‘disturbed’ is used here. I’m a sane dude.
I will tell you what is really disturbing though. At the bottom of her/her friend’s post it says something to the effect that Melissa is a very professional person and that she’s ignoring what that evil mean Andrew says. BUT, she’s going to show you a site that was created about me and how ‘creepy’ and awful I am. I can only assume that either her or her ‘friend’ created it.
Here’s the opening line, which is (I think) something to describe me:
“Dramaturgial = The term in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the “katamenia”, the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material.) literally: acceptance from the audience through manipulation, from the fact that one could create a way for others to suffer a worse fate than them was to his or herself a relief. It can also describe the effect of producing an outlet for violence, by acting as a form of release for violent behaviour. For example, in forms of media or in a dream.”
And then it goes on to describe how I’m ‘violent’, ’stalkerish’, and that I seduce 17 year old Norwegian girls in internet chat rooms for my own sick pleasures, make them break up with their boyfriends, and am scared of rejection or something like that.
Oh yes…and I was apparently almost 30 in 1999.
……..
Holy sweet mother of all that is good and awesome, Batman.
First of all…I have to congratulate whichever person took the task on of taking the time to create that site. I’m kind of flattered that I, Andrew Joseph Geonetta, could rile someone up so much that they’d create a little shrine to me (as crazy as that shrine may be).
And I also have to congratulate whichever person actually conjured up that stuff about the Norwegian girl. It’s kind of creative and funny in the same way one might think the banjo player in ‘Deliverance’ is creative and funny…
The real (summarized) story is as follows:
- I talked to a Norwegian girl in a chatroom and over e-mail…10 years ago. She was really cool. I guess you could call it a pen pal thing. I was talking about going to visit a friend in Germany at that point and remember saying something like, “Hey, it would be cool if it were possible to do some travelling while I’m in Europe and somehow could come visit in the Netherlands.” She sent me a packet of stuff that had things like recipes of traditional Norwegian food, some pics of her and where she lived, a map of her town, and a letter. I know there was more, but I don’t have it because…
- Melissa took it from me. It was really sad.
- After that, I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden, this really cool girl couldn’t talk to me any more because her boyfriend (who I knew about…she lived with him, for God’s sake) all of a sudden decided that his girlfriend and me were “more than just friends”. Because…you know…that makes sense. The only thing I can guess is that my fun-loving girl Melissa must have mailed something? E-mailed? Called? this guy, telling him something terrible. I honestly don’t know for sure though; just a theory.
I lost a friend out of it, and that really sucked.
So…digital reputation management, friends…make sure yours is clean and spotless. Me…I don’t think I’ll do anything about either of those sites. They are both pretty entertaining and defiitely make for good conversation.
