Net Google Value

Admit it. You Google yourself.

There's no shame in it. Seeing your name in print never gets old. Realizing a person on the other side of the planet could find you just like that? Well, that just tingles.

When I entered "Samantha Simpson" into the Google search box today, I found a gallery of paintings by an artist of the same name. Another Samantha Simpson won the Blackademy Award for being Most Outrageous, while yet another Samantha Simpson, age 5, enjoys corn on the cob with her family.

Then I found my Blogger profile and a few colunns I'd written for my college newspaper. Now, this does not make me an Internet celebrity. The beauty of being Googleable is that you don't have to overextend yourself to do something worthy of observation on the Web. Do you go to school? Do you have a job? Do you go to church? Do you post angry letters on Rush Limbaugh's website? Well, then, your name just might drudge up some results on Google.

I'll admit this. I Google strangers and celebrities. Trey Parker is super-Googleable, way more Googleable than your average animator, and I suppose that happens when the series you created with your best friend scores high ratings on Comedy Central for nine years and counting.

Since I have a crush of Beatle-mania proportions on Trey Parker, I decided to Google that woman he plans to marry. I figured she would be one or all of the following things:

1) Miss Pageant Winner, 1985-2004
2) a forensic scientist
3) a folk singer
4) winner of the blackberry pie-eating contests in both Alabama and Arkansas
5) a novelist
6) a fashion designer
7) a papparazzo
8) President of the NRA
9) the oldest Brownie Scout on record
10) Kevin Federline's other baby mama--no, no, his OTHER other baby mama
11) a time traveler
12) the stunt person for 75% of Hollywood actors--male and female.

If she were any of these things, then I would deem her worthy of Trey Parker's affection (read: marginally more interesting than yours truly).

I braced myself; I Googled. And you know what she is? Well, first she "escorts," then she is "girlfriend of," and now she's "engaged to" Trey Parker. Weak. Perhaps she materialized from the ether or something cool like that, but I'm being catty here. Again I say, weak.

I asked myself how I would feel if I were identified only by my relationship to my celebrity boyfriend. And after I stopped daydreaming about having a celebrity boyfriend, I decided I wouldn't feel so great about that at all. Sure, all identities are relational. We all belong to someone. We have to.

Except on Google. Your name should be able to stand alone in that bold, arial font--a testament to your minor accomplishments. Even five-year-old Samantha Simpson gets props for managing that cob.