I woke up at 5:15 this morning after having a dream that I was forced to participate in a drag queen pageant but no one would give me any shoes or makeup, so I was walking barefoot and plain faced at the end of this line of drag queens, totally humiliated.
This led me to lay in bed and start worrying about my online presence. I got up and Googled myself, which is always a surprise. First, I didn’t expect to find that another photographer in Florida had plagiarized my Purchasing My Artwork page, word for word. This didn’t bother me so much, but I did write to him to ask him to change the words that read “at the sole discretion of Scott Barnes Photography” — since I had never heard of him or anything. (By his response, I think he was justifiably mortified.)
I was also surprised to discover that my fine art nude site, Vir Impudicus, has been indexed by Google and comes up when you type my name. The whole purpose for creating a secondary site for nude photography was to keep it unconnected to me, by name, so I’m not exactly sure how that happened. And it’s leading to mixed feelings.
On one hand, I’m not embarrassed by any of the photos I shoot. I feel they all have artistic merit. I shoot erotic art, not porn, and if you disagree that’s your problem not mine. But on the other hand, someday I might be searching for a new day job again, and I’d rather that not be the first thing a potential employer discovers about me.
I guess there are enough people with my name that it shouldn’t bother me too much — doing a Google search for my name leads one to a whole lot of content that isn’t about me. Still, my online persona is something that I think about. I suppose it’s just a good lesson in making sure that I always put my best effort forward.
I did go into Tumblr and change the setting so that this site won’t be indexed by Google. I should have been smart enough to do that in the first place. I’m not so sure that I like having a Tumblr blog, I might get rid of it. I feel like I have enough of an online presence between this site, Facebook, and Twitter. I don’t need one more time waster.
I also had my first appointment with a new therapist tonight. This should be good.
#1 by Luke Stark (@lukesaysmoo) on October 25, 2012 - 11:50 pm
If Vir Impudicus domain is registered to you then the name will be tied. Also, I would assume that you probably have people linking along the lines of: See Scott Barnes latest photo. That’ll tie it rather quickly.