molly.com
Tuesday 11 October 2005
Ego Naming
EGO SURFING ROUND THE WEB this morning, it occurred to me I have been called some odd things by people. Now, I’ve worked at least two of them into bios, so the perpetuation of these oddities is in part my fault, but let’s take a look, shall we?
One of the Top 25 Most Influential Women of the Web
This one was bestowed to me by webgrrls back in some ungodly Web year like 1998 1997. What’s really depressing about this one is – quick – name the other 24.
Yeah.
One of the Greatest Digerati
What the &%^k does this mean? Really? I didn’t have much of a clue so I went (where else?) to Wikipedia and looked it up. Here I learned a few interesting things. The word is considered a portmanteau, which is a word formed with both the sound and meaning of two other words, in this case digital and literati. Oh, the other word for portmanteau is Frankenword, which just cracks me up. Reading the Wikipedia definition, I suppose I fit the bill. But it sounds so self masturbatory* that I think I’m going to drop it from my bio.
First Lady of the Web
Okay, this is the one that got me started on this entire train of thought in the first place. It seems to have appeared just last week after WE05. Ryan Short may have been the first perpetrator, but I’m going to forgive him because he wrote a disclaimer about the bestowed title. Somehow, the moniker quickly made it halfway across the world, and Colly used it too in a bit of saucy banter about cocks on sticks.
Really.
Then, Andrew Krespanis, who made me nearly break a rib with his hysterical Let there be w007 referred to me as The First Lady of Web Standards. Of course Andrew K. was still a young lad in short pants when we were doing stuff like that and thinking it was cool and not just a source of endless amusement for geeks.
Now here’s the thing. A First Lady is typically the wife of a president or governor, who may or may not attain fame in her own right. Since I’m unmarried, I can’t follow the logic here, unless the assumption is that I’m a). married to the Web or b). married to Web Standards.
I suppose the argument could be made for either, but in that case, where’s my pretty ring**?
*first to name the source and explain the context of that one gets a book
**first to make a quip with “web ring” involved gets hit with a book
Filed under: humor, standards, we05
Posted by: Molly | 03:46 | Comments (25)
To be honest, being British I’ve no idea what a First Lady is anyway? I understand the concept about as well as I understand weeners, American Football, botox, summer camps, the space race, baseball and that guy who played the Anchor man and also Elf. You know, the not funny guy…
* @media word game, unless I’m very much mistaken!
so, which # of the 25 were you?
Hayo, you’ll find the list via the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/19990221235554/http://www.webgrrls.com/sf/25women.htm
Since Andy already caught the first one, I have to ask: if I get hit with a book, do I get to keep it?
Singing:
So let me get this straight… Figure out where the phrase “self masturbatory“, and get a book. Make a comment about “a ring”(no context there) and get a slap.
Not going there. Why? Becuse I might get a slap with a book I might win.
-=Mark W. Wallace=-
Oh, gee, I wish I had read about “Let there be w007″ 5 hours ago so I could have SMACKED ANDREW THIS EVENING!!!!
Ow, my eyes!
Actually I did not give the title that much thought. Being Australian I did not really draw the “wife of the President” conclusion. I was thinking more about first as in the number one or very important person of the web.
Actually having written it I was wondering how you would take it, but having spent time with you I figured you would accept some gentle ribbing.
I think it just means you’re good at what you do and people like you
Accuracy of terminology is optional. We don’t validate our spoken conversations after all (eeeh we can’t be obsessively accurate *all* the time).
Alternatively, you could look at it as a chance to set fashion trends and/or have a career long after the term of office is over (depending on which era you look at
).
Political connotations aside, I think you’re just the first lady we think of when we think of things web. So it has a natural “ring” to it. *dodges book*
And there’s no way I can name another 24. The web industry is still a big sausage fest (said lovingly in the spirit of cocks on sticks).
See, I always just thought of you as “really cool.”
The “masturbatory” reference was from a conference Molly and others attended, I believe. Each person was given a word to incorporate into their speeches. (I think there’s a link on Eric Meyer’s site about this, but I can’t connect to it right now for some reason.)
Molly, you mean you didn’t catch the post from my site where I called you a dirty dirty… oh wait, nevermind. Never happened
I thought it was obvious, Molly…
Anyone as involved (WaSP, countless presentations + instructional materials, etc) as you in the field is surely married to their career
Open standards are the Master and Cheif of ‘teh n3w intarweb’ and you are caring for them and smoothing over any public embarrassments that they may endure.
Ok, I’ll admit that I just came up with the above statement after realizing what First Lady actually means… None the less, it *seems* reasonably accurate
I may not have been contributing to the broken web of yore, but I was racking up hundreds of hours per month on that horrible little MSN version of the web you worked on nearly a decade ago ;P
“What’s really depressing about this one is – quick – name the other 24.”
That almost made me cry.
I hope this is not too obnoxious, but I’d like to see Molly acknowledged for being an important figure on the Web — period. Not just the “pretty good…for a girl” routine.
Colly: That’s okay. I don’t understand the American Football, weiners and botox either, and I’m so American that when I asked Jeremy Keith “Hey, if Ethan “Sidesh0w” Marcotte can be an honorary Brit, can I be one too?” and he responded “No, you are just TOO American, Molly” I knew that was that. So you’re forgiven
Andy, yep, that’s it. What book d’ya want? Catch me in email and I’ll make sure you get something – since I’m not going to be home for several months at this point, I’ll have the publisher send it so it won’t be signed
But we’ll rectify that somehow. There’ll be some fun events in London in November that maybe you can make it along for. More info on that soon.
Hayo: I don’t recall the order, but it was the first year of those awards. Sadder than sad is the fact they did them for three years, which means that somehow 75 women were on the complete list. I’d be hardpressed to name more than three other women on those lists that are active and in the public eye today.
Robert: I think you just really want me to hit you as hard as that dead and bloody horse we left lying in the street a few months ago.
Mark: So what you’re saying is you don’t want a book. That’s okay, Andy H. beat ya to it anyway.
Lea: Oh, darn! Well, if you get him next time, make sure someone gets photographic evidence and immediately flickrs it.
Ryan: Yeah, you know I’m teasing you back. All in good fun. What would life be like if we couldn’t have a bit of banter?
Ben: Ah! An anti-validation guy, at least when it comes to verbal exchange. I’m with you too, most of what I say is completely invalid
Chris G: Ha!
C Montoya: “Really Cool” works for me.
Chris Hester: It was @media wordpl@y. Doug Bowman submitted the word, I ended up picking it blindly out of Joe Clark’s hat. If me ending up with that word doesn’t prove the existence of unseen forces at work in our universe, I really don’t know what does.
Dustin: Heh. Yeah, I saw that. And here you thought I was just playing nice. :: sews a Dustin voodoo doll ::
Andrew, you must be shockingly older than you look, cuz here I thought you WERE 10 years old. (Okay, you now have been given formal permission to throw a book at ME). I tease. Wow, you were really around in the bad old days of MSN. Wild.
Gavin: Yeah. And congrats on your brand new bouncing baby blog!!!
Sally: Too obnoxious? On my site? Hard to do. But thank you, and to the credit of my mostly male colleagues, I have never been treated with that “pretty good . . . for a girl” b.s. You know where I encountered that most? In my former pursuit as a musician. Nearly every time I’d play lead guitar, some asshole would inevitably say those exact words. Needless to say, it’s not an environment in which I was able to thrive.
Oh molly,
you are one of the few and last of the bigTimers that still respond to each and every commenter… but I take that back because that would just be one more name :p
*Ouch, Quit poking my voodoo doll!*
Sorry, I can’t seem to use the correct words and now I messed up the formatting of the previous comment…
I meant to say that I was afraid you’d take it that way. No harm meant, and I think you know it wasn’t.
I’ll stop now.
>”I thought you WERE 10 years old”
Common mistake.
(I can say that without fear of [immediate] retribution, because I live a 2-hour plane ride from Andrew.)
Re the First Lady concept, screw that, let’s just make you the Queen of the Web.
Just don’t mince too much else people will get the wrong idea. I mean don’t get me wrong, I think you’d have to go pretty far to look like a gay man, but since everyone assumes the intarweb is full of men, the immediate assumption might cross sexuality lines rather than gender lines.
Bugger. I just open my mouth to change feet, don’t I?
Worldpl@y lives on!
Dear Molly, I love you and your wonderful comments.