I’m sure many of us have been mistaken for someone else with our same name at least once in our lifetime – myself, I get a phone call about once a year from debt collectors looking for a deadbeat named Jason Dunn who grew up in Eastern Canada. They ask me questions about where I grew up and went to school, then figure out I’m not the Jason Dunn they’re looking for. But, year after year, I keep getting calls. Hopefully someday that other Jason Dunn will clean up his credit and I can stop getting those phone calls.
In the online world, getting mistaken for someone else is less common, usually because there’s context around how you found them – a Web site, a search engine, a forum posting. It’s not always enough to get the identity right though – I keep getting email messages to my Gmail account meant for another Jason Dunn (one located in the UK) because he doesn’t seem to know what his own email address is. It’s rather bizarre – especially since a few of the messages I’ve received have been of a rather personal nature. But I digress…
In the online world, at the moment, I’m the #1 ranked Jason Dunn in Google. Sure, that’s not as cool as being the #1 ranked Chris, but hey, we can’t all be Lockergnomes. I’ve checked my rankings now and then over the years, and I’ve always jostled for Google position with a 6 foot 6 inch 274 pound NFL linebacker and an unfortunate fellow that died of an accidental gunshot wound. But in the past year, there’s a new contender: the lead singer of a Canadian band named Hawk Nelson, who’s name also happens to be Jason Dunn. They have a light punk/Blink 182 type groove. The other day, I received an email that gave me a good chuckle, because it finally happened: someone thought I was a “famous” Jason Dunn. Here’s the email:
Jason, I just want to know.
How Do you write such AMAZING lyrics.
You are a huge influence to me in my band. But i need help with my writing.
could you help at all? i know you are busy. But hey!
its worth a try.
Thanks,
[name withheld]
Now isn’t that a nice email? I’m a musician, and I’ve written a couple of songs in my life, but I had a hunch he wasn’t emailing the Jason Dunn of Thoughts Media Inc. to ask about song lyric writing. I wonder which one of us Jason Dunn’s will be around in Google a decade from now? Time will tell…but I’m hoping it’s me. 😉
I’ve enjoyed some Hawk Nelson but never paid attention to the lead singer’s name. Now THAT is funny. I just checked and because of that pesky Prime Minister, the correct Paul Martin doesn’t show up until listing 146, and that’s because of Thoughtsmedia. 🙂 With such a common name, however, it is disturbing to read the news and find out you’ve committed a horrific crime or have been dead for quite some time and just didn’t know it. 😉