On the Unintended Consequences of Google Alerts and Pro Wrestling

I now know more about the career of a certain WWE wrestler than I ever expected. You see, we (almost) share a name, since I am Colin Delany and he is Colin Delaney, and our lives are fundamentally intertwined online.

To keep track of what you kids are saying behind my back, I have a Google Alert set up on my name and its most common misspelling (along with alerts on “online politics,” “epolitics” and the names of reporters who frequently write about this stuff). For the first year or so, no problem at all — “Colin Delany” is not exactly a common name, so almost all of the alert messages were on-target. But sometime in the past year, young “Colin Delaney” has become a rising star in the WWE universe, and the high volume of writing about him online is filling my inbox with quotes like this: “Colin Delaney is the epitome of a man with a dream who will stop at nothing to achieve it.”

Indeed. As any of my Adams Morgan barstool colleagues will tell you, I am ruthless in pursuit of my dream, which involves tons of money, plenty of chicks and enough blow to kill a lesser man. And slack: lots and lots of slack. Such is the life of a Famous Blogger, competing in a far harsher arena than my well-oiled near-namesake.

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