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Noah had been telling people I was his arch nemesis since 1998 but couldn’t be bothered to tell me what I had done that was so awful. It wasn’t until I googled myself for the first time—three years later and finally away at college—that I found my full name in the “Arch Nemesis Archive” on his website. I cringed reading the series of digs drenched in hyperbole, #009900’s dark lime green announcing I was “worse than Switzerland in World War II” for having talked to myself loudly enough that Noah overheard. And my notes were in every color of the rainbow—the nerve! It was mean but . . . funny, and anyway, figuring out I could leave such a strong impression on a person made it seem like an even trade (except in job interviews, wondering whether they clicked the link). I got used to seeing it there, near the top of my search results, until it wasn’t anymore. The Internet Archive has its last capture in December 2010. By then Noah had probably outgrown his teenage web presence. I’m nostalgic about it now; it was like a cool scar: every so often I’d come across it and remember this thing that had happened that made me tough. And like most scars, it’s barely visible so many years later.

Rebecca S-J lives in New York City and is a civil servant.