My mom is forever insisting that my blogging activities are going to inevitably get me into all kinds of trouble and ruin many potential career paths. In today’s internet age it seems that everything you do leaves behind web footprints. You can Google almost anyone to find dirt on them. For example, any of the following searches can (and have) led internet surfers to my innocuous little blog:
-new haircuts for wide faced brown haired girls
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p> -dr sanjay gupta honeymoon
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p> -ecstasy induced trance and subliminal messaging
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p> -Why los angeles sucks
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p> -kissinger + cia + chile + allende + cockroaches
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p> -worlds mosts sickest pictures
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p> -bad thinking inside the mind
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p>
And of course SO MANY people have at least one atrocious picture of themselves embedded somewhere it the bowels of the internet. It’s a picture that they took (for example) right after they had to walk a half mile on a very humid day when it was drizzling, which in turn made their hair all puffy and chia-pet like. The New York Times Stephanie Rosenbloom writes:
IN the winter of 1996, back when I was a brunette who wore sensible shoes, a photographer snapped my picture during a rehearsal for a college musical. The production mattered; eating and sleeping did not. The resulting portrait showed a pasty, gaunt girl being swallowed by a XXX-large T-shirt.
The only thing more unfortunate than the photo is that nearly a decade after it was taken – a decade in which I became a blonde and graduated to stilettos – it is still the definitive image of me on the World Wide Web, the one that pops up every time my name is entered in a Google search. It even has the dubious distinction of being in the top 10 hits in a list of several hundred, most of them articles I have written.
The photo caption says that as the show’s director, I was working “behind the scenes.” I beg to differ. I am center stage in cyberspace. Never mind that the photograph accompanies an article about my theatrical achievements. If a prospective date were to encounter the virtual me before the flesh-and-blood me, he would not be moved to schedule aperitifs.
But if misery loves company, then there is solace in knowing that many people bristle at the mere thought of being Googled because of the photographs, news clippings or blog entries that they feel do not reflect who they really are. Such is the plight of the Google-ee.
I mean seriously! The caring, sensitive individual that I am (who really just wants to be held) doesn’t come through at all if you Google me to find out who I am. Instead, there is talk of Henry Kissinger and the cockroaches he used in some alleged coup attempt. Any sane person would be scared off. Is it any wonder I can’t get a date?
Anil Dash, who describes himself on Anildash.com as “a writer/geek/New Yorker living in San Francisco,” has been blogging since the 90’s and has built a virtual identity that he says accurately reflects who he is.
“The Internet is a very good analogy to a company,” Mr. Dash said. “There is always going to be somebody complaining. At least the first voice they hear is yours.”
Last year Mr. Dash participated in a challenge in which competitors attempted to get their Web site to be the first Google result for the made-up phrase “Nigritude Ultramarine.” Mr. Dash won the second round by posting a request on his popular blog asking readers to link from their own sites to his using the phrase.
An attempt to influence the rank of a site returned by a Google search is known as Google Washing or Google Bombing. Referring to the process as “gaming Google,” Mr. Palfrey explained that Google’s dominance as a search engine was largely due to a technology called PageRank, which he called the company’s “special sauce.”
In the interest of full disclosure I felt it was necessary to reveal to our readers some pictures of current and former SM bloggers that can be freely found on the internet. These are just examples of what the New York Times article was referring to in case you didn’t quite get it:
Now some of you might be wondering, “Why doesn’t Abhi show us a picture of Manish? Surely there is an embarrassing picture out there somewhere?” I owe Manish all kinds of payback though for various posts making fun of me. His fate shall be much, much worse.
That isn’t a bad picture of A N N A! She’s just kicking it Working Girl 80’s style.
I tried googling for an SMer and see what I got!
i know what stephanie is talking about.. a college picture from ’97 is up and about in our alumni magazine… man.. what i would do to have it erased… cest la vie….
In the YEAR 2000… (ala Conan)
those who never blogged and participate on the “internets” will be considered pariahs, who never took an interest in community.
Ads will run pointing this out, and the public will be shocked.
In time, anything can be construed, depending on who is in charge of contextualizing.
You are building a movement. Keep it up!
new haircuts for wide faced brown haired girls
Uh, I hope she found some inspiration?
anna looks good, as always. and my mom always told me malayali dudes were better looking than their women 😉 (sorry v-man)
Internal contradiction– Anna is Malayalee, and I’m sure Vinod would freely admit she’s better-looking (except when he’s wearing his purple pimp Halloween costume).
Anna is Malayalee, and I’m sure Vinod would freely admit she’s better-looking
hm, well, but to be honest, speaking as a straight guy v-man has a pretty fly bod though, doesn’t he? to honest, very few of you SM people seem to be butt-ugly, far less butt-ugly than the typical range of browns in america (i went and looked at a lot of your pictures on friendster). btw, my gf saw your pic on my friendster the other day and commented that you are good looking even!
Anna is Malayalee
and yes, i knew that, i was implying my mother was clearly wrong. the only malayalees my mom new were haggard nurses that brought their boys over 😉 and how do you spell it? malayali or malayalee?
I think both are correct, but I see the “ee” spelling much more often.
Old goal for tomorrow: Make it through Bar prep class.
New goal for tomorrow: Prove razib’s mom wrong by not looking busted in Bar prep class! 😉
Wow. It’s been a couple of days since I’ve visited Sepia Mutiny and now that I’m back, it looks like this website has been invaded by Malayalees (not that I’m complaining). I wouldn’t be surprised if the next post I see is on Mohanlal or some other Malayalee related subject. But then again, Mohanlal isn’t the stereotypical Malayalee “nerd.”
what’s the ethnic background on this site? i want to scream discrimination if there aren’t any bengalis representing!
Oh man, I’m so motivated to go running and look gorgeous even if its just to study in my room… Thank you Anna for making us proud!!
Hrm…I’ve been here since FOREVAH. And I’ve been Malayalee that whole time. And, as far as I can tell, Anna and Vinod have been too.
I guess it’s because I’m relatively new to the Mutiny. When I wrote the comment, I was referring to the fact that several of the recent posts and comments have references to the subject of Malayalee identity. As I said before, I’m not complaining. In fact, it’s a good thing since I ‘m learning more about what it means to be “Malayalee.”
Being Malayalee means never having to say you’re sorry 😉
Deepa, Did you consider taking Celebration as a Bar Prep course in place of BarBri ? I have been told by people in Ca that Celebration works better than BarBri for the Ca bar. Also are you taking PMBR as well ? I didnt learn a thing at PMBR and lost 3 valuable days in the end.
Before this site turns any more like hotornot.com, I’d like to write the last word in aesthetics by chiming in with deepa that Anna looks very pretty, borderline like a model, in that photo unlike her usual dowdy self available in pictures at her homepage.
you’ve got a bizarre definition of dowdy, my friend.
eofia, see, that photo of her doesn’t have any appeal. Yes, she’s not dressed dowdily, but her facial expression and the general ambiance she portrays exudes a strong sense of cosmopolitan mediocrity. Being urban doesn’t flatter one’s image by much. Being urbane, however, does. In the photo you have linked, Anna appears oily and hurried whereas in the photo Abhi linked, she seems clear-complexioned and elegant with her head held high. The air-brushing effect of a blurry low-res photo probably aids her in that endeavor – not to detract from her appeal in that picture.
(off-topic.. as if we were ever on-topic) To the editors / site administrators: I’ve noticed posting as certain user-names is prohibited. Might I suggest employing edit distance to a cache of user-names with allowed from-IPs? All strings s where edit-distance(s,x) < 3 can lookup x’s record. For ‘banned’ posting names, set the valid from-IP of x to 0.0.0.0 or any other invalid-IP. For ‘protected’ posting names, set the valid from-IP of x to Your.ClassC.Network.* and for new strings x, a ‘general’ posting record can be formed with valid from-IP set to ... If edit-distance < 3 isn’t strong enough to capture similar names, certain transitions o->ö and l->1 can be counted as a zero-length transformation, allowing special-edit-distance < 3 to capture many, many more verisimiltudinous faux-posters. (caveat: if o->ö is a zero-length transformation, I, Punbaji Böy, would be caught under the dragnet for being 2 edit-distances away from Punjabi Boy whom I am not!)
Subnet banning is already done. Locking name to IP is a bad idea as people post from work, home and on the road. Mail me offline.
Uh, PunBaJi, wouldn’t it be your comments that are the ones turning this thread into hot or not?
I personally think Anna’s photo that was linked to is very pretty, just as this one is.
Sure, it was taken at a nightclub and she probably hadn’t had time to refresh her makeup, but it’s hardly mediocre.
Anna never Photoshops her pictures, which is more than I can say for, well, me. I think that if you can put your picture online without running it through image manipulation, you’ve got to be hot.
well, i started it. i was just saying what was on my mind (re: anna) and figuring i could get a good hearted burn into the v-man through a comparison, but i see it opened a can of worms. i hope my comment was taken as a the mischevious (but sincere) compliment that it was, it wasn’t meant to spark any irrelevant critiques. if you don’t got nothing good to say….
andrea, I humbly submit – you are right in pointing out that mostly I have been carried away in hotornot-style opining.
That said, I want to point out a technicality. I never commented about Anna’s beauty. I, careful to qualify using ‘appears’ and ‘seems’, have merely been going on about aesthetics from the point of view of looking at a photo, forgetting the person it’s about. I believe you are under the influence of viewing Anna under the halo effect (which, as an aside, is mentioned in an article quoted by an Abhi article, “Turn your head and cough“).
You have stated you believe that if someone can put a picture online without running it through image manipulation, s/he must be hot. Fine, I’ll cede that, gratis. You conclude Anna is hot. Fine, for argument’s sake. You then are, via juxtaposition, correlating how Anna is hot with how her photo is. While you are entitled to the opinion that both photos are equally flattering, I feel you are showing bias by invoking the real Anna into conversation. I have no opinion/comment about which epithets the actual Anna embodies. I simply find one photo flatters her far better than another.
Based purely on photos, disregarding Anna the person, if you still feel both are equally flattering, shall we agree to disagree?
This sucks. Every time I try my hand at a funny post that has any sort of picture or possibly even a reference to Anna as even a minor part of the post we end up debating some stupid issue that has NOTHING to do with the post as if “she isn’t even in the room.” For God’s sake, Apul is about to make love to an alien and Vinod…well he’s just scary. Where are the comments?