The Social Media MBA Blog by Karl Long

A few days ago I wrote about Lonelygirl15 and how it had been discovered that she was not an angst ridden teenager, but a figment of some filmmakers imagination. Just today the New York Times published a great article about it that includes Lonelygirls real name (Jessica Rose), and where she’s from (New Zealand) etc.

In my article on September 8th though, I did something pretty typical, I misspelt something, namely Lonely, I actually spelt it Lonley, which still looks right to me Unfortunately because Lonleygirl15 slips past the spellcheck, and i’m dyslexic it went live. As it turns out a lot of other people can’t spell lonely either, take a look at this:

Yep, over a 1,000 people hit my site because they misspelled lonelygirl15, and that’s just since since September 8th. Not only does it indicate a lot of people are misspelling it, it also indicates how huge a story this is and how many people are interested in it.

In many ways I am an unlikely blogger because I suffered so badly at school due to my poor written work. Oral exams were almost always an A, and written projects always a C, so when I left school I vowed never to write again. Here I am now 3+ years into blogging, and I accept that mistakes will happen, but they don’t define my work, my world, or my perception of my self. Although I still have some very good friends that read my blog and just beg me to get an editor. I wonder, does the value of getting my thinking and ideas out there in the world outweigh the possibility that my credibility will be hurt when people discover that I am a total grammar and spelling dunce.

It’s awful to admit but on the occasion that i’ve been a participant in online dating, i’ve skipped over profiles that made heinous spelling errors. Am I a spellist of the worst kind…