Applying for a sideways secondment at work so I was dusting off the old CV (last updated in 2914 folks) and it occurred to me that my email address is a bit old fashioned. I still use a hotmail.com address, since about 1998 or sonething, although I was sensible enough to go with my full name, no bells or whistles or numbers or crazy nicknames or anything. It’s now tangled up in all my logins, from facebook to this place, so would be hard to untangle now.
So I’ll keep using it, although I’ve only just realised that to anyone under 30 (40??) a hotmail email address probably looks as ridiculous as yahoo or MySpace. That email address on my cv, along with my total lack of presence on LinkedIn, is probably the biggest thing scuppering my chances of rising to the top of the corporate world, the digital dog eat digital dog place.
I always feel the need to end my afterword posts with a question, just to maintain the illusion I actually have point to make. So here it is.
What’s your online giveaway that you are vintage and not hip to the millennial newness? Does anyone want to admit to an AOL address or a geocities homepage?
(Another thing that signals my digital dinosaur status is the fact that my phone has somehow at some point locked onto autocorrecting the word ‘something’ as ‘sonething’ (see para 1 above) and I neither know nor care about how to stop it)
(Also autocorrecting 2014 to 2914 for some reason I notice. I’m like a clown with a comedy typewriter)
You do have *very* long shoes, it has to be said.
“a clown with a comedy typewriter” – or Stephen King, as he is known in some parts of the world…
Email itself is a dinosaur in the ever-changing world in which we live in. My Post-Modernist Polish Pals, who live through their phones, uterly diskard both email and even talking through their hand-held devices.
I have a yahoo mail account which is probably ice age.
I have had the same email address for over 20 years, which also uses my real name and gives away the fact that I have never changed my internet service provider. I do have an iPhone 12, but unlike the young people* I actually use it for talking. I also possess a landline that has a number so old it contains lots of zeros. (For some reason, ‘landline’ has become the term that seems to be used dismissively to denote what we used to call a ‘telephone’). I only recently threw away my Phone Book as I realised that most of the people listed in it were probably dead.
*sadly now almost everyone
I’ve had Yahoo and Hotmail accounts from when this was all new (and Hotmail was a cool independent company, like Skype), but have long since lost the passwords. Been using Fastmail for a long time – they recently reduced my fee (!) as a reward for being old.
I have a Hotmail account which has my actual name on it. I use it every day as do my pals and family. Every time I order something off the internet (only happens two or three times a day) I’m asked for my email address. What do them young people do then?
Don’t worry. The ones who care will probably think Hotmail is cool and retro, and possibly ironic in some undefined way.
I believe this too. Mine is a Yahoo derivative, ‘rocketmail’, which I like to think the younger ones will think of as a Non Fungible whatevs.
I am at a loss. What is old fashioned about a hotmail address? Is it the hotmail element, or the act of using email? What are we supposed to be using instead? And how was I supposed to receive the memo telling me all this, if not by email?
…and you care about this why?
It’s on Arthur’s CV so maybe he’s concerned about the impression it would give younger people in recruitment.
Yes that was the spark for me. “Concerned” is maybe too strong a word, as I am long past the stage of particularly caring about career progression and what the youngsters in recruitment think. I was just curious to see if anyone else had thought about this.
I had just stumbled upon a couple of comments online that seemed to suggest hotmail was old fashioned. I think I CAN update to outlook.com but I’m not really inclined to.
Anyone who can be arsed to have a serious opinion about this isn’t worth working with. Problem solved!
Is the right answer!
The opinions of such people are worthless.
The only way to communicate.
Hotmail isn’t an issue for an individual. LinkedIn is an awful work version of Facebook, people digitally shouting “look at me and this thing wot I dun.” A waste of ones and zeros.
Linkedin used to be (as a freelancer) a great tool and source of work for me, but you are right, its now just become a self congratulatory horror story
I work in the IT industry. I’ve never thought of a personal Hotmail account as old fashioned. Real nerds register their own domains, but for most people @hotmail.com is fine.
What does grate is a company with a Hotmail address, that looks cheap.
I have a hotmail.co.uk address, amongst others. Sometimes people remark on the suffix, as if it’s weird. There’s a strong tribal desire to conform, even when it comes to email addresses, it seems.
Something I always wondered is why .co.uk suffix in general?
America is .com (they were first)
Canada is .ca
Germany .de
Italy .it etc
So why isn’t it just .uk in the United Kingdom? why is co needed
We just like to be different. If you haven’t heard about it yet, there’s thing called Brexit which is quite an interesting story about how the UK likes to make its own rules!
IIRC its for historical reasons co.uk (commercial) was to differentiate from other national sub-domains ac.uk (academic), org.uk (non profit organisations), gov.uk (government) etc etc so in the past all domains had to be registered under one of these sub-domains.
The rules changed a few years ago so now you can directly register a .uk domain thefterword.uk for example..
Ok thanks
I am, therefore, a nerd. registered my own domain in 99 and have happily swapped service providers since.
Unrelated, I remember thinking, when a colleague gave me his “hotmail” address way back when, that it sounded a little bit “wank” TBH.
I don’t really understand the question, if I’m honest – but then I’m not on Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/anything else – and I only got a gmail account (full name in username) when I got fed up with the old provider crashing all the time – I think I took advice here, in fact. My old account had my surname with no numbers or symbols required.
Oh, and I still use my landline.
Who knew our profiles would match?
Well, I never! Sadly, I have no idea which is the correct direction to swipe…
I actually love the fact you don’t understand the question! This kind of stuff is really not worth bothering about when it comes down to it. All I meant was, things which give you away as being out of date with current online fashions.
I think you are saying a Hotmail address with a full name is a giveaway because all the “proper” names have long gone therefore forcing the young uns to use “Zombie65@tikkytocky.netsquar.groovy. com?”
Yeah, I suppose I had a weird sense of pride and loyalty in keeping an email address that is simply firstnamelastname@hotmail.com, and in some ways I thought it demonstrated dependability and forward thinking. I spotted right early on that it was probably short-sighted to tie your email address to your service provider, as the latter was likely to change at some point – and I’m still proud I had that foresight.
But now I’m starting to realise that to youngsters it just comes across as “check this old boomer still using hotmail lol” (“Boomer”, I’ve noticed, having now become the default derogatory term for anyone from ancient times who can remember life before the internet, parents smacking their children and old heritage acts like Britney Spears and The Killlers).
I wish I’d been able to keep my old ten digit compuserve email address. Had to bin it out of outrage when it went all AOL and Yahoo, but there’s still somehow a nostalgic romance to my old ten digit identity that had no intrinsic meaning. Bit like life, really.
My first email address started ch25208@ …
There are worse mistakes to make. I remember a clickbait ‘worst things you’ve ever seen on a job app’ page where the writer had been asked to look over an application a colleague have received as a CV attached to a covering letter. He read both and said, ‘Seems alright. She comes across OK in the letter and there’s relevant experience in the CV. Has to be worth an interview.’ ‘Look closer’, his colleague said. And it was only then that he saw the job application had been sent from the address Alltheboyzwannacumonmytitz @ hotmail.com.
Well, we’ve all done that, haven’t we?
Not me. I haven’t even met her
You came in a bit quick here, chiz.
In that case, she would definitely be worth interviewing.
When my kids started emailing I did insist that as well as having xplosionbaguette@ gmail.com they should register their name@ for exactly this reason.
If you have a fastmail account you can create multiple names. Use your real name or whatever, depending on whom (grammar) you’re emailing.
Well, I only have a landline. I have no need or desire for a mobile phone. Mind you, Martin Carthy has had the same phone number since 1972 (true).
Tudor 457?
Turns out that that particular exchange covered Muswell Hill. Of course, Thommo’s number would be Mock Tudor 1952
Very good! But surely ‘Thompo’ is the correct abbreviation?
No, we’ve been here before I’m sure. Epenthesis is a linguistic term for the insertion of a sound or letter within a word, so ‘warmth’ is often pronounced so it sounds more like ‘warmpth’, and Chelmsford where I live is more like ‘Chemps’fud’. I suspect the same happened with the name Thomson, creating the variant Thompson. Because Thommo is an extension of the first syllable I don’t think Thompson would become Thompo unless Tom is pronounced Tomp.
Thompson is pronounced Tomp-son where I’m from.
What about Thompson’s Intrepid Trouser?
RT was born in Notting Hill and moved to Whetstone, I don’t think he actually lived in the Hill of Muswell. He attended William Ellis in Highgate (as did three of my brothers -in-law).
Another brother-in-law was an electrical engineer at the Tudor exchange.
Via Highgate.
I think his UK home is still in the Hampstead/Highgate area. I’m going see his wife Zara Phillips’ one woman play (with Richard providing the musical accompaniment) at the Gatehouse in Highgate on Sunday.
I registered with my provider in 1991 – »E-mail« was a fascinatingly nerdy thing amongst design students, and there was only one company in Berlin who made it possible. (It was quite a hassle to check every 10 or 14 days if a message had arrived »on the computer«…)
The provider since changed its name (and owner) several times, and the nice »@snafu.de« address is long gone, but every time I contact their customer service they double-check my account number – it’s …000 000 088, meaning I probably was the 88th person in Berlin to get an E-mail address (outside of science institutes and the like).
My email is aol.
It also has 2000 attached. This was given to me by aol as my desired address had been taken already. This was so long ago the year 2000 seemed futuristic.
All too often, my wifi is awol.
Keep it long enough and anything will go from out-of-date to “vintage”, including email addresses.
My first car was a Triumph Herald*, which I bought for 50 quid as a runner, and sold a couple of months later for £150 to a vintage car enthusiast. I thought he was nuts, but I wish I’d hung onto it now.
(*) Not good at starting or cornering, and even worse at stopping. Luckily the big rusty hole in the floor meant I could sticky my foot on the tarmac and use the Blakeys on my heels as brakes.
Currently in this position with a Gibson Flying V – stash it under the bed and let it appreciate in value; or sell it on, freeing up some cash and some space? Probably won’t take it to a gig now, since I look like “midlife crisis man” with it (then again, maybe I always did…)
A Flying V does not look good on mid life crisis man. Man.
Not so much that the V doesn’t look good ON mlc man; more that the V MAKES you look like mlc man…
I lost my first email address when I changed ISP, and have used gmail ever since. I registered interest early enough to get my name without having to resort to creative spelling or numbers. I know they scan everything but given that 95% of the mail I get these days is marketing guff they are welcome to. It’s free, I’ve never had it crash, and seems unperturbed by all the different devices I log in from.
Anyone else ever start getting somebody else’s email? A vicar who lived somewhere over towards Norfolk has the same name as me and opened a gmail account with a dot between his / my christian name and our surname. He must have told all sorts of people the address despite the fact the dot separating first and second names went unrecognised and all his mail came to me.
It was funny at first – room booking requests for the Methodist Hall, diocese meeting minutes, reminders his MOT was due, subscription confirmations to sites like NaughtyNuns.com. After a while I responded to a few asking they let him know what the problem was. Almost nobody replied, apart from a rather a rather testy estate agent who told me to delete what he’d sent me. All that made me do was have another look at what he’d sent in case I’d missed something interesting. I hadn’t. It’s tailed off now, so I guess he’s moved on. But each day I check, and hope…
I share both my names with an author fom Portsmouth and a music tech lecturer from Leeds (he also engineered a post-peak Happy Mondays album). Since I no longer work in The Biz, I get fewer of their emails from randon strangers, but we keep in touch.
The Porto author dabbled for a time in music journalism. I bought one of his music books and asked for it to be signed – he told me to sign it myself.
It’s actually real easy to set up a new email address and have your old one forward to the new one
I don’t have a clue how to do it
But you know, google
However easy it is, it’s too much hassle for me.
I started a little journal to write down all the passwords and login names I need for online stuff. I’ve now filled two pages. Absolutely unbelievable, and I basically don’t remember a single one.
This is me too basically.
Linked in and other ‘business’ sites I’ve signed up to in the past, regularly (like every day) want me to connect with someone or other. Some of them I know through business.
Surely it is better to pick up the phone and call them or just visit them unannounced if they have expresses an interest in contact?!
@Arthur-Cowslip try this :
* choose a memorable word and preferably change some letters to digits.
* append that (or some other easy to remember prefix / suffix / infix type thing) to the password for every site you need e.g. memOrableEbay, mem0rableAmazon
I’ve done this since I needed to use passwords. Extremely rare that I forget any and like most people I need dozens.
Or get a password manager 😉
I have a Hotmail dot com address (I am a citizen of the world, don’tcha know) which on a whim, I added the suffix esq. to my name (apparently only applicable to lawyers… didn’t know, not a lawyer, don’t care).
In order to be a bit more ‘with it’ I also opened an email account with Google, but even then have been lumbered with the fogeyish @googlemail.com rather than the go-faster-striped gmail. Still, all the pouting, busty laydeez who want to go out with me seem to like it 🤔
When Google first launched their email service in the UK, you could only have [you]@googlemail.co.uk as your email address.
[you]@gmail.com was only available to US subscribers for about the first year.
After that, either the googlemail.co.uk or google.com suffix would work to send or receive emails. I think one or two of my website logins still use the googlemail suffix and using google.com on them will not be recognised.
I have a personal .com domain which I acquired in the mid-’90s but have never put to much use. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my actual given name.
I vaguely remember a time when you had to be invited to join Gmail by someone who was already a member, like the Freemasons.
I remember when Spotify was like that. Tell that to the kids today, etc…
I used a Yahoo address for yarz ‘n’ yarz until – in a private communication – H. P. Saucecraft laughed at me, so I opened a free account at Protonmail, a free end-to-end-encrypted service based in Switzerland (so I expect money launderers will be dead chuffed with it). Anyway, so far, so good.
In fact, Archie made this comment entirely via email.
Proton mail is also the email account of choice for the dedicated stalker. Can’t be traced back ever..
Between this and the body-disposal business on the Modest Pride thread we’re getting quite an insight here into the shadowy “other lives” of The Afterword. Much skullduggery, it seems… or show that be skull’n’roses-duggery?
Some tips on successful body-disposal (and details regarding the problems that could be encountered) can be found in the novel “Out” by Natsuo Kirino.
I have a yahoo account because I’m a nineties bitch.
I still have an aol email address.
Don’t see a problem with that.
Good luck with the job application Arthur.
As an indicator of the changing job market and technology, I have a very basic LinkedIn profile which I set up a couple of years ago when it looked like a company takeover might lead to redundancies.
Every few months I will get a message from different recruitment consultants asking if I’m interested in a particular role they are looking to fill. I’ve never taken it any further until last week when a brief chat lead to a very decent job offer. I spoke to my own boss and very quickly was offered a substantial pay rise.
And I still have my Hotmail account too
I didn’t know you were still playing, but fair play on getting a decent transfer offer when you must be about 50.
He must be coming to Hull City.
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/blueyonder-old-as-shit-gmail-dull-as-fk-what-your-email-address-says-about-you-20210526208507
Google have just emailed me saying my account is 50% full. Even given the size of emails has increased since text-only days, I reckon I can hold off panicking till around 2050 at the current rate.