A Brief History of My Mom’s Web Presence

1999: Blog or Email?

My mom got tangled up in the internet around the time my sister and I left the house. That’s when a member of her bridge club wrote an email with the subject line “Blog or Email?” that went on to ask whether various things on her computer were blogs or emails. Though most of the contested items were Word documents, Mom was convinced that they were ethernet. That correspondence sold at the peak of the internet bubble for $1.2 million.

2000: Happy21stBirthdayGraham.biz

Strangely proud of her misguided responses Re: Blog or Email? Mom designed this — not actually a web site, but an Evite to my 21st birthday party. She added ‘.biz’ to the title of the event because she thought it might attract an upscale crowd. The party’s centerpiece was a huge chocolate cake sculpted to look like a first generation iMac with two white dinner candles crammed in the back like TV rabbit ears. On what was supposed to be the cake’s screen, Mom had crudely rendered my face in icing meant to look pixelated with “www.happybirthdaysweetpea” scrawled above it. She tried to auction the left over cakeand the candles/antennae on eBay, but could not find an interested party.

2002: NancyNancyTotallyNancy

After Ellen ran a segment about online dating, I helped my mom open a Match.com account that she called her “kissing blog.” Her profile name was NancyNancyTotallyNancy. She claimed that her guiding philosophy was “Wild women don’t get the blues,” and despite my protests, insisted on answering the fill-in-the-blank question “ _____ are sexy, _____ are sexier” with “back rubs” and “front rubs.” After one particularly horrible date, she filed a breach-of-contract suit against Match.com, claiming, “I can’t find a good man at your hunk show.” The trial is ongoing.

2004-2006: YouTuba.com

Although I was totally convinced that a web site designed to convert audio samples of every visitor’s voice into the style of famous tuba solos from the 19th century wasn’t a cash cow, the venture was purchased by Google for an undisclosed sum in 2006. An archive of her favorite tracks, including a Christopher Walken/Also sprach Zarathustrasoundalike, is available at the sister site FrenchHorny.net.

2007-2008: MomLovesYou.org

Mom eventually made the common move from internet fan to web felon when she launched this phishing site. As words of maternal wisdom appeared on the screen, undermining identity-theft software downloaded on to each visitor’s hard drive. Although she did give a percentage of the siphoned funds to Heifer International, she used the lion’s share to buy tea towels, bridge handbooks, and rare tuba 45s.

2009: Mom.Blogspot.com

Mom used to put this URL in the signature line of her emails, though the page belongs to a Swedish film production company called Mathias och Mikaels. In our increasingly infrequent phone conversations, she neither confirmed nor denied a relationship with the company, though I suspect she sold them embarrassing videotapes of my childhood, as every Swede I meet tells me I look just like the fat baby from the diaper commercials. When I wrote to info@mom.blogspot.com about the matter, I received a royalty statement and a reminder to call my sister in response.

2010: VjaGrA_emBIGGen_69_LONGest_LoVeR, etc.

Though it has been some time since last we spoke, I believe that my mom is now sending Viagra-oriented spam. Federal prosecutors have barred me from speaking in detail about my allegations, as an investigation is pending, though I will admit that my suspicions began when I noticed that all the erectile dysfunction solicitations I receive were signed “Love, Mom.”