What Now

*SIGH*

Well, this is lovely. 

As some of you already know, I have a Twitter account.  I don't use my real name, and since I had an old account under the name I'm most well known as on the internets,  that I cancelled years ago, I couldn't get that name back.  When I started my Twitter account back up again, I decided to use a nickname a friend of mine from the Sprocket (ptooey) gave me.  I'd tell you what the name is, but it might only exacerbate my current problem.

Basically, it's an abbreviated version of the French word for grapefruit.  That's all I'm saying.

If you aren't familiar with the way Twitter works, when you want to refer to someone else who might have a Twitter account (or anyone, really) you put an @ sign before their name or handle.  That creates an automatic link to the account with that name, apparently whether or not the person they are talking about has a Twitter account of their own or not.

Anyway, after I opened this particular account, at first I noticed that my Twitter feed was being linked to by people who are referring to friends who actually had this name, or a variation of it.  At first, it was all in Portuguese, and whoever this person I shared a name with was a party animal because when I finally figured out what language it was, I translated it online and the tweets were always talking about going to clubs and parties.  It was a little annoying to get an email every time this person referred to my account, but I was OK with that, because it was harmless.  Plus, it wasn't happening very often.  I just sort of wished that whoever kept linking to my feed would figure out that they were linking to the wrong person.

Next, I started getting a lot (and I mean a lot) of emails mentioning that I was being referred to by a professional organization that just happened to have an acronym that was the same as my Twitter name.  This was a bit more annoying because whoever was in charge of the "professional" social networking for this company wasn't smart enough to realize that if they wanted to refer to something going on within their organization, and since they didn't own that particular Twitter account name, they needed to refer to themselves with a # instead of an @.  If nothing else, anyone interested in joining their organization would be linked to my Twitter account, which is about as banal and non professional as one can be, instead of being directed to anything that had to do with them.  That's just bad business, and it was probably frustrating to anyone trying to follow the organization on Twitter.  Eventually, though, the references to me by that company stopped, hopefully because they got someone who figured out how the site worked. 

Now, however, I've got a whole new problem.  I'd been getting notifications that my account was being linked to a lot, and I couldn't figure out why.  The entries were all in a language I didn't know, or even recognize, and while they did reference my name (therefore linking to my account) whoever posted it also has a link to a picture of a mostly naked woman in an...uh...well, porny pose.  Since you can't see the woman's face, anyone who clicks on the name link is redirected to my page and that makes it look like it's me posting naked pictures of myself online.  I most certainly am not doing this!  I'm also getting questions in languages I don't understand, so I can't clear up the confusion with these international pervs.  I did a little digging and finally figured out that the link was written in Turkish, and once I got that far, I was able to find the webpage where the picture came from.  Apparently, there is a Turkish model or celebrity of some kind who takes mostly naked pictures of herself and posts them on her website.  Honestly, if I had a body like hers I'd probably be posting naked pictures of myself online too...but since it isn't me, I'd rather not be associated.  I also realized that her name is one stinking letter off from my Twitter account name, and the dumb ass who originally posted the link to the picture misspelled her name and that is why all of these Turkish horn-dogs won't leave me alone.  Until this dies out, or until this lady gets her own Twitter account, there isn't anything I can do but occasionally put up my own tweets in English (a lot of good that does) that I am not the naked Turkish model. 

Granted, I could change my name on the Twitter account. I know this.  I shouldn't have to, though.  I like having something I can use that doesn't automatically link me to everything else I do online.  The only people who know who I am are the friends I have who personally know me, and anyone else following me just knows me as my screen name. 

Oh, well.  This too shall pass, I guess.  Now, if I could just figure out how to start charging these idiots who can't seem to understand I'm not this woman every time the link is posted, I wouldn't mind.  Heck, I'd learn Turkish and pretend to be her.  It's not my goodies being flashed all over the internet, after all.  It'd be a win-win for everyone.  :)