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Like many ideas in my brain these days, it began with a tweet.
Do you have an "online" reputation? What is it? Do you know? Do you know mine?
It was a Lifehacker post which prompted these questions from The Queen of Spain (BlogHer CE Erin Kotecki Vest). Several people forwarded their impressions of themselves and of Erin. Erin offered her observations back. And the banter got me thinking about what I would want my reputation to be, how that differs from how others see me and how that reputation has evolved over time.
My response to Erin's question "Do you know mine?" was: yours - queen of stuff? (and that's a good thing) shit stirrer? bad ass mommy blogger?
Erin responded: queen of stuff works. kinda. I can't do others, it's too hard. I'd say...maria niles is expert on all things, defer to her. lol
I replied: I'd rather my rep be "loves everyone and hugs inappropriately - just accept it" but I suppose you don't determine your own rep
And then my brain wheels really started turning.
Why did I recoil from of me as "expert on all things, defer to her?" I mean, doesn't that sound like an awesome commandment? I've always been insanely curious. I began to read at age 4 and at 5 attempted to read my way through the encyclopedia, I'm told. My random reading across subjects continues to this day and I eagerly jump into conversations on the many topics about which I know a little. As a kid, this tendency to share caused my classmates to brand me a "know-it-all." And it always made me sad that my eagerness for knowledge and conversation made people think I thought I was better or smarter than them. Trust me, I was just as overwhelmingly shy and insecure as any young girl - talking about things I'd read was a way to get my nose out of a book, bring me out of my shell and allow me to connect with other people. Thus, the idea that I'm expert on all things and that people should defer to me made me uncomfortable.
I know that Erin meant that description as a high compliment and did not offer it in a derogatory spirit. And I could choose to own that perception. But I thought more about that pithy, spontaneous description I offered back and decided to attempt to write a twitter bio (you can write a one-line, 160 character bio for your profile there). Arse Poetica offered "badass" as a word for my description so I added it. Then I incorporated my spontaneous response and tweaked Erin's description to one that felt more comfortable for me. The result is:
Badass. Loves everyone, hugs inappropriately. Curious, opinionated & likes to share.
Another aspect of the article that sparked Erin's questions was the idea of having an "online" reputation and how you manage that. That prompted responses to Erin about how and if online and offline reputations varied. Most who responded to Erin and to whom Erin responded back concluded that for this non-scientific sample, online and offline reputations are the same. Except for Nancy White who apparently has a reputation for being taller offline. (I would link you to a sampling of some of the amazing responses Erin received but twitter is down once again as I write this.)
I have no idea if my online and offline reputations differ. I know that I do not make any effort to separate them. Certainly there are things some people who know me in real life know and there are things we discuss that I would never share or discuss online. But I use my government name online and don't try to censor myself out of fear. To do otherwise and attempt to manage multiple identities is just too exhausting to contemplate.
What are BlogHers saying about reputations online and off?
Natalie at Simple and Loveable writes:
I totally think we go too far sometimes with trying to create online persona’s that are nothing like what we do in real life and the coolest thing about the internet is that even if we never meet, you and I could really get to know each other.
Kim Krause Berg at Cre8pc on Usability & Holistic SEO asks:
Whenever we remove our mask and people see the real us, there’s a risk. How















