MOP April 27: Why I am the Girl in the Red Rubber Boots

It’s weird how, when you curate an online persona, you end up defining yourself by really random stuff you thought of years ago on the fly.

I have a number of readers whom I don’t know, and they all (probably) think of red boots when they think of my blog, so I should really have a REASON for that blog title, right?

I’ve been thinking about this recently, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember WHY I had chosen that name. I certainly didn’t own any red rubber boots at the time.

So I read back through my blog archives, and I think I’ve discovered why I chose to define myself by that particular piece of footwear.

Step 1: Thanksgiving 2010 I went to visit my Aunt Barb. Some of the kids that she lived with watched this one Phineas and Ferb episode on TV that was a spoof of The Wizard of Oz. Instead of ruby slippers, the Dorothy-equivalent had red rubber boots.

(I found a youtube clip of the Wicked-Witch-of-the-West-equivalent dancing in the boots, which I guess I found pretty inspirational at the time.)

Step 2: I searched for red rubber boots online. There was a pair of short Hunter boots that I thought were just lovely, but of course way too expensive.

Step 3: I got inspired to update my blog, so in December I made a new header. I basically used the same random objects that had been in my previous header, only I swapped out the red converse for red boots, because I thought converse were lame and I loved those unattainable Hunter boots.

Step 4: In January 2011, I updated still more, buying my own domain name and coming up with a new blog title. I still liked the idea of red rubber boots, and they were there in my header, so I just decided to be “The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots.”

Step 5: It was sort-of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because in 2013 I bought myself a pair of red rubber boots. Only not the Hunter ones, but cheaper Kamik boots. I did, however, buy them with the small amount of money I earned from ads on this blog, so that was cool.

At least I put more effort into the title than I did for my old xanga blog, now nonexistent, which was called “supergirlemzel” because I watched The Princess Diaries, and there was that song at the beginning, you know, “I’m supergirl, and I’m here to save the world…”

Or my twitter avatar, which is a cartoon of Lucy from Peanuts giving psychiatric help. I have no clue where that came from.Or my pinterest profile, which I guess was done in a weird fit of semi-sarcastic humor.
Or my facebook profile, which says I’m the person who screws the caps on the toothpaste bottle. Actually, I think Jenny hacked me and wrote that after I hacked her and changed her political beliefs to “Marxism.”

(And yes, I realize that it looks like I’m just tricking you into following me on pinterest and twitter or whatever. Which you can feel free to do, but it won’t benefit you much as I rarely use either.)

Now, I’m curious to know about you. when it came to choosing blog names, avatars, and blurbs about yourself for your online profiles, how did you choose? Was it a random arbitrary decision, or did you think it through?