Vanessa Blaylock's Online Identity.

What is Vanessa Blaylock’s online identity? As tends to happen to women, I’m changing my name. Are women property? Perhaps. I’m not changing my name because of a man. I married Ze Moo at Covent Garden in London on 4 June 2011. He’s an amazing man (and an awful playboy!) He really gets me. Better than anyone I’ve ever known. Sometimes better than I understand myself. It feels so great to have someone who deeply understands who you are. I love this man.

Vaneeesa Blaylock

Even so, I never took his name. No “Vaneeesa Moo.” On Facebook he listed us as In An Open Relationship. I was pleased to learn that puts us in “The 1%” at Facebook. Still, I am changing my name. My ass is corporate property. I guess I can tattoo “FB” on one cheek and “G+” on the other.

I’ve exclusively and consistently used the name Vaneeesa Blaylock for over 4 years now. But when I made a Facebook account the Virtual Nation-State informed me that if I wanted my Virtual Green Card, I’d have to change my name to “Vanessa.” Later when I applied to Google+ for dual citizenship, apparently they signed on to some sort of Berne Convention too. “You can have your dual citizenship with Google+. You can have all the rights and privileges it affords. But we need you to change your name to a spelling we like.”

Those events are in the past now. But a couple of days ago my pal Berry wrote a post on how everyone should “claim” their Google Authorship. I had already done this. But my results were a little unimpressive. Then I realized that Google Authorship wants posts by “Vanessa Blaylock.” Here on iRez there are 471 posts & 41 pages by “Vaneeesa Blaylock.” There aren’t any by “Vanessa.” Changing your name to satisfy a corporation is kind of humiliating. But I’m probably the only one who really cares. Most people seem to think I’m “Vanessa” anyway. Maybe it’s just a lot of self-perception.

Vaneeesa Blaylock is dead.

Long live Vaneeesa Blaylock.

Vanessa Blaylock

I’ve had to be Vanessa Blaylock on Facebook, Google+, and all the sites using Facebook Connect for some time now. In more emancipated worlds, like Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, and others, I’ve let my Vaneeesa flag fly. Today I changed my Twitter & WordPress names to Vanessa Blaylock. I can’t say I love it. But it doesn’t feel that bad. Just a little humiliation in a life that probably had too much ego anyway. And now I have dual citizenship at the 2 most powerful virtual nation-states on earth. How great is that!?