"Do no evil."
This is the Google mantra. The problem, of course, is "what do you mean by evil?", because to quote another great aphorism, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The geniuses at Google decided to create a social network, "Google Plus" or G+ as we like to call it. They decided that for a social network to work (and more importantly, to maximize connections), people had to find each other. So far, so good.
Then they made their main mistake... they decided that people are known only by their real names. Apparently, the Google geniuses don't actually use the Internet (which explains Google Glass, I guess).
There's a whole culture around using aliases on the Internet, and many people are known only by their aliases. I've gone by the alias The Werewolf for almost 40 years - it dates back to the old BBS days where you call a board directly over a modem. My artwork is signed with it - I never use my real name. For all intents and purposes - to the Internet - I am "The Werewolf". If someone is looking for me, that's the name they'll search for.
Admittedly, "The Werewolf" is a problematic name. It's really generic. Other people use it too. But guess what? There are three people who share my real name at the pharmacy I use for prescriptions. "Real names" aren't any more unique. So sometimes I'm "Theo Werewolf" which sounds more like a real name and is actually fairly unique.
Anyway, during a week that was filled with being evacuated from my apartment because of floods, having to live in my car for part of a weekend because of that, getting almost no sleep because of running around to //build/ in San Francisco and then a trip to Vancouver - I come home to find my G+ account suspended because someone at Google decided "The Werewolf" was too creative to be a real name.
God knows, we can't have creativity or whimsy at Google.
Weirdly, Blogger does let you use an alias because they're keyed to your email address, not your name. Which makes more sense. So, should my G+ account go dark, I'll be here.
If anyone cares.
Cheers.
