What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.
Political Compass.org: Here's how mine swings.
Economic Left/Right: -4.38
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.92
I was having a bad day on May 22, 2000. Work didn't end satisfyingly, and I was thinking of tucking my tail between my legs and crawling home and then, on impulse, I decided to buy this domain name that I'd had my eye on for about two months. I just plugged it into the field at the registrar and doggone it, it was still there. A friend from a now-extinct mailing list had mentioned a hosting company she used for her site, so I figured they could handle me too. I paid for it, waited for it to get set up and talked and talked to this tech-support guy for hours on the 27th. And then things began to move forward.
My first online handle was "mymedia." That's the name I still use @aol dot com, @hotmail dot com and @yahoo dot com. I thought I was hot shit when I signed up through one service to get it @earthling dot net and another to have it @sirius dot com. I got 'em all in February or March of 1997, right around the time it became clear that, at the job I was working at the time, I was going to need one of these "e-mail address" things that more and more people were acquiring. I didn't even think about a site of my own until later.
Why "mymedia"? Because I felt intimidated by the concept of the Web/Net/e-mail/FTP, this amorphous, mysterious network of ways to communicate and express yourself. I didn't have a problem with computers. I'd rather read a book than play a videogame, but me and computers always got along fine. I just figured that I was working in the media, that I'd probably stay there and that, most importantly, I'd want a way to psych myself up to belong and participate, to feel like these new, utterly baffling media were mine.
Hence the name, my site's name and my MeFi handle are the choices of a timid egotist. I guess, to paraphrase the words of a former co-worker, that I wanted to remember that I was unique, just like everybody else.
