What's With My Domain Name?

Published: 2024-01-13 1:45 PM

Category: Technology | Tags: domain, web, website, identity

I was perusing some blogs today and saw a post from Juha-Matti Santala in which he described his domain and others who inspired him to write his story. I've felt a little bit of a dry spell in writing, so here's mine.

I was at a conference in 2011 where I met some technology-focused teachers for the first time. Following my session, I was encouraged to buy my domain and start a website so I could "share my message." (In retrospect, that was a tainted way of thinking about how to use the Internet, but that's for a different post.)

Brian Bennett, unfortinately, is not an uncommon name. The first search result is Brian Bennett, the famous English drummer and pianist. The domain brianbennett.com is parked and for sale for an affordable $14,000 USD, so I had to come up with other options.

Since my initial focus was on marketing my message, I really wanted to stick with my full name if possible, so I grabbed brianbennett.org as the closest alternative. I threw WordPress on a BlueHost account and quickly built an okay website trying to market myself as an educational technology expert at the ripe age of 24.

Fast forward a couple years to 2014. I was working with a company and some friends started making the Family Guy "oh hey Brian" joke when I walked over to their building. It sort of caught on and I started noticing it a lot more. A quick domain search showed that it wasn't registered and wasn't too expensive. Since it was more of a gimmick domain, I threw a blank page up with a clip from Family Guy before finally taking time to learn how to build my own websites from scratch. The Wayback Machine has one of my earilest sites archived so you can still get a taste of what my early attempts at web development looked like. The blog link sill pointed to my brianbennett.org domain, but that was not long for this world.

The Vibe

I think ohheybrian.com as a domain helped me capture a little more of my personality. When I started, I was solely thinking about how to be A Person of Knolwedge on the Internet, which meant a name-based domain as well as a particular level of seriousness that I look back at now with a little bit of embarrassment. Since committing fully to the name, I've felt much more comfortable experimenting and letting my own personality come out a little more.

For a long time, my site was a very spartan landing page that had a little bit of snark about not wanting guest posts. It was a swing too far in the other direction, maybe as a pushback against the marketing tack I'd started with. I think my current design has captured the blend, keeping a very minimal design and aesthetic but not so bare that people can't learn a little about me.

Maybe it's maturity and maybe it's just not caring quite so much about what people think of me when they visit my site, but nearly 10 years after purchasing ohheybrian.com, I think this one is here to stay.