Seeing Katie Couric wonder whether a phone line was needed to reach "Internet" made me think of how, in 1994, none of us had any idea what we were doing.
In honor of Ms. Couric, I made an embarrassing confession to Lady Rad that in 1993 when I was going through Freshman orientation at college, we were told to pick a "username" that would allow us to log on to the computers on campus. I suppose it was also told to us that it would be used to send "electronic mail." No one knew what "electronic mail" was at the time, certainly not a 17 year old freshman, and remembering that I actually said "What's the point? I'm never going to use e-mail," I tried to be witty and picked a nickname that my friends had bestowed upon me in high school -
"prettyboy"
Not only did I not think about how effeminate that name sounded as a username, I had no idea that "prettyboy" would become my entire online identity at the University of Michigan AND that email would be sent from and received by "prettyboy@umich.edu."
For the next four years I sent email from that humiliating address to professors, TAs, and professional recruiters. Hmmm, I wonder why the only job out of college I got was working for Disney?
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