TLD Magic

When I was an industrial design student first looking to publish an online portfolio, one of the first things I did was try and buy benjamin.com. I wasn't surprised to find someone had beat me to the punch - my name is ubiquitous. "Oh well," I thought, benjamincorey.com it is. Only this was taken too, this time by a magician with a 90s-style landing page. bencorey.com? The same magician, this time presenting himself as a corporate entertainer and lover of sans-serif fonts.

Figuring that between the two of us there were enough .com domains to go around, after dialing his number and pressing the option to speak with "the artist or a representative" I was quickly connected with a man who shares my exact full name.

"Hi, this is Benjamin Corey," I said to Benjamin Corey.

I explained that I was calling to see if he was using both domains or if I could borrow one. His business, he said, depends on both, and he recommended an alternate TLD.

So I settled for a .net.

There's something extremely surreal about visiting a webpage plastered with your full name, peppered with breathless testimonials about your skill at entertaining a crowd. I often think about this video.