3 ms·

I imagine people in your life also hold you accountable for things you did 20 years ago. Your actions define you and people remember.

tzs 8y ago
It used to be, though, that if people were defining you by something you did years ago, and you didn't want this, you could move to another town far enough way that there wasn't much social overlap between people in your new and old towns. Unless what you were trying to get away from was a fairly serious crime, there was a good chance the new people in your life wouldn't find out about it unless you told them about it. Now the old stuff is on the internet, and you can be stuck with it unless you go to more extreme lengths like changing your name.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  I feel like it would be pretty trivial for the average person to get rid of their social presence. If they used their real names on things like e.g. forums then yeah, that will follow them.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    I don't even have much of a "social presence" but Ive definitely had certain specific affairs of my day to day life affected for the negative (applying for credit to buy a house) just because I have a very boring, mundane and incredibly common (American) name that shows up in all sorts of databases even though I'm not the exact and specific person with my name convicted of, among other things: grand larceny. For this reasons and others I've given real thought to pursuing a legal name change.
    - etatoby 8y ago
      Oh wow. That sucks. Maybe you could just add your grandfather's name as a middle name, or something like that.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        The grand and hilarious paradox is that I was already named after my grandfather, heh.
  - tzs 8y ago
    It's not just social media nowadays, though. Do something stupid or embarrassing that makes your high school or college newspaper, or the blogs of your fellow students, and it is probably online and in search engines.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      True. I lucked out a bit by finishing school in the late 90's.

tzs 8y ago

It used to be, though, that if people were defining you by something you did years ago, and you didn't want this, you could move to another town far enough way that there wasn't much social overlap between people in your new and old towns. Unless what you were trying to get away from was a fairly serious crime, there was a good chance the new people in your life wouldn't find out about it unless you told them about it. Now the old stuff is on the internet, and you can be stuck with it unless you go to more extreme lengths like changing your name.

EpicEng 8y ago
I feel like it would be pretty trivial for the average person to get rid of their social presence. If they used their real names on things like e.g. forums then yeah, that will follow them.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  I don't even have much of a "social presence" but Ive definitely had certain specific affairs of my day to day life affected for the negative (applying for credit to buy a house) just because I have a very boring, mundane and incredibly common (American) name that shows up in all sorts of databases even though I'm not the exact and specific person with my name convicted of, among other things: grand larceny. For this reasons and others I've given real thought to pursuing a legal name change.
  - etatoby 8y ago
    Oh wow. That sucks. Maybe you could just add your grandfather's name as a middle name, or something like that.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      The grand and hilarious paradox is that I was already named after my grandfather, heh.
- tzs 8y ago
  It's not just social media nowadays, though. Do something stupid or embarrassing that makes your high school or college newspaper, or the blogs of your fellow students, and it is probably online and in search engines.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    True. I lucked out a bit by finishing school in the late 90's.