Kids, let me tell you a story. Today’s Blogger, May I prompt is the story behind my blog name. Back when I had an AOL email address (hello 90s), I was enthralled by ‘zines. They were basically just bulk emails that were sent out. I wanted so badly to be one of the popular ones and have tons of replies when I wrote something.
Then there was DeadJournal and LiveJournal and Xanga. I think the only thing I didn’t have was a GeoCities site!
I always loved writing and putting it out there for others to see it. I remember my father asked me why I couldn’t just write in a journal.
Come on now. If you didn’t publish your deepest thoughts for the internet to see, did you really think them? I think I was the original (unintentional) hipster.
Fast forward quite a few years. I saw Julie and Julia. I loved it. I wanted to do that, so I got the genius idea to do it with a quilt. I was in Ohio with my mom and she bought me the most perfect Moda jellyroll I have ever seen. I found a pattern and got to work.
Since I was using Moda fabrics, I named it Moda Vivendi (a play on modus vivendi, meaning agree to disagree; a way of life). And I wrote maybe 2 posts. My follow-through needed a little work. The quilt got finished, though!
I loved the name so I kept using it throughout college. I mostly shared pictures of my nail polish and random thoughts that came up. In 2013, I switched to SyntaxxErrorrr. It’s what I used for all my social media accounts. I would go to events and introduce myself as SytnaxxErrorrr because that’s how people knew me. I had to use it for my blog’s name.
There are still photos tagged like that because I didn’t keep the PSD files and it’s a bitch to reupload everything but they’ll change some day.
What I failed to admit to myself is that “SyntaxxErrorrr” is hard to find online. If you want to have a successful blog, you gotta make it easy for people to get to.
One day last June, I was in the garden watering my plants between jobs – I worked at Sharp Edge in the morning and interned with Yelp in the afternoon. It’s terrible to admit, but I didn’t give a damn what I looked like for Sharp Edge; Rachel, my Yelp supervisor, always looked amazing in cute dresses and accessories, so I always tried to do it up on Yelp days.
So there I was tending to my garden wearing a flowy skirt, platform wedge sandals, and lots of jewelry while wielding a dirty garden hose trying not to get dirt smudged all over my legs. I was rarely successful with that one.
And I said to myself, “Gardening In High Heels – now THAT would be a name for a blog.” I was so excited, I told my mom right away. Even she liked it (and she barely uses email).
I turned that idea over and over until I finally purchased the domain. I just sat with it for a long time until I decided to let go of SyntaxxErrorrr earlier this year and made the leap to change my name for the third time.
Guys, I think this one is going to stick. I really like it here.
Are you a blogger? How did you come up with your name?
Need the prompts for the Blogger, May I challenge? Gotcha covered. Want to use your own prompts? No problem! Just grab a button to show that you’re linking up with myself, Katy, and Meghan. Oh, and use #BloggerMayI on Twitter/Instagram to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!
