What’s in a Name? Imagery Triggers: Poetry or Porn

The digital bullet train (our current mental mode of transportation in the interactive world) has succeeded in proving to me that even in the most innocent of things, care must be taken to investigate all possibilities.

And so, this my second blog, is dedicated to the quandary we may occasionally find ourselves in when we try to move at the same speed as the bullet train and end up being flattened by it instead.

This is a cautionary tale about how I came up with my username on Twitter. And how I learned to regret it. As a consultant and work gypsy in the interactive space for the past 14 years, I have become increasingly ‘corporate’ and have lost the ability to share much of the creative energy and spirit that drove the first part of my professional journey. Now there are a lot of reasons for this that aren’t part of this blog, but I do look for ways to try to inject some of this creative thought back into my every day life where I can, despite the fact that the day in and out of life in multi-channel interactive world can be pretty geeky and technical sometimes.

So, a while back when I wanted to join the fledgling Twitter community just to see what it was about, I was also joining a multitude of other social networking sites, all requiring unique profiles and user IDs and passwords. And so one late night while registering for Twitter, and not being able to use my real name as my Twitter name, I just came up with something completely different. Bluvelvetmuse. I liked the tactile and seemingly poetic nature of this name in a sea of bits and bytes. And without Googling it, I just used it.

Some months later now there are many people on Twitter. And someone yesterday asked me how I came up with this name. And did I know that Blue Velvet was a porn network in NYC. And a highly erotic indie film from the ‘80s. And honestly, the answer was no, I didn’t. I probably should have, but didn’t.

So, now my poetic and tactile velvet muse feels a bit tawdry and I am faced with the embarrassment of having associated myself with this name and also for not having done my homework beforehand.

So while I would have liked to have just found something else that plays on the senses, I decided to find a different outlet for that and ended up with /KempInMotion. Pretty safe, to be sure. It syncs nicely with my new blog, Digital in Motion, which will live under my Kemp & Company moniker. I may start a more personal and literary blog as a creative outlet and call it Poetry in Motion. 

Twitter started out as a fun creative outlet and turned into a space where my clients, colleagues and potential clients now follow me and clearly reputation management is of utmost importance.

In the end, though I made a safe and professional decision, I fundamentally believe that with care and purpose, the imagination is still ignited by words, images, and memories of what something feels like, smells like, and sounds like. These are the joys that color our world.

Comments

[Jason Sack]

Jen that is so funny. Tawdry tales from the techno-age. I'm sure it's not the first time it's happened... Great to see you speak at the AMA.

[Luis]

that is so funny! specially because there is a growing community of "sexy twitters"... You would be surpirsed of the tweets... One thing I learned from one of my mentors in an Ad agency is that your name is your brand, and you should invest in it, rather than in a funky or smart-ass name.
So kudos for KempInMotion!