The Rising John Hoole Menace - A Threat Assessment

For most of my life, I took it for granted that the combination of my first and last name was too unlikely to be replicated anywhere.  Think about it -- John Hoole.  Who else could possibly have this name?  Have you heard it anywhere else?  Having personally known two others (my father and grandfather), I should have known better.

Guiltless Pacifist

It was back in 2003, when I wrote a (muddled) article online entitled "John Hoole is a Guiltless Pacifist" that I first sensed they were out there -- the other John Hooles.  To my disappointment, just one person responded to what I hoped would be a very provocative declaration.  Here is what he wrote:

im john hool and i dont think bthat i am a guiltles pacafist i will sue u!!!

This fellow was so adament about setting the record straight that he posted his comment twice.  No lawsuit followed, but from then on there was no avoiding the fact that a) there were other John Hooles and b) that they might be out to get me.  I began to reconsider my guiltles pacafism.

The New English Tyranny

By now it's a commonplace that everybody googles themselves and everybody else -- our profile on the web is a tantalizingly concrete reckoning of a part of our persona that was largely inaccessible before the internet -- reputation.  The rub, though, is that your rep might as well not exist if it's not imminently searchable.

Search for "john hoole" on Google and you'll see that all serious threats to my stature on the web originate from England.  Back in 2002 I had search engine supremacy, which was a pretty easy thing to accomplish then.  Now, on the first page of results I've been elbowed back to positions 7, 8, and 9.  You actually have to scroll to get find a relevant search result.  Think of the needless confusion this creates!

I see no problem with a few other John Hooles staking out some modest corner of the net -- there is more than enough of the web to go around.  For example, I've got not the least beef with my father's website (Google search result 80) -- it'll always be a niche site, mostly for his Sunday school class (and besides, he's my pops -- I'm used to sharing some space with him).  But this wholesale English usurpation is beyond the pale and it's high time something was done about it.  It's like the fellow said, when in the course of human events, etc., etc.

~ 

In anticipation of the next time you google John Hoole, what follows is a guide for navigating the thicket of Englishmen I've come to regard as interlopers.

History's Forgotten Nitwit - The Original John Hoole (Google Search Result 4, 5, 6, 10)

Ye Olde John Hoole

A John Hoole that should be considered the nemesis of all modern John Hooles is an 18th century clerk, translator of Italian classics, and literary dabbler. The last of the three plays he wrote for the stage was so poorly received that he gave back a large portion of the money he'd earned for the copyright. Famed novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott witheringly praised him as "a noble transmuter of gold into lead."  Another early commentator called his translation of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" "more vapid than the smallest small beer sun-vinagared." 

The historical record also pegs him as something of a lick-spittle.  His contemporary, Charles Lamb sarcastically called him "the great boast and ornament of the India House."  It's easy to understand why -- in a sympathetic account of his life, it's said that even during his leisure hours, he "laboured indefatigably in making out the invoices for the [East India] Company's outward-bound ships."  What a neat way to kill time!  From what I can tell, the historical John Hoole was a favored whipping boy of the 18th Century English literary class, who gained a measure of fame as an annoyingly ambitious dullard.  All right thinking John Hooles should have an interest in seeing this unworthy tool relegated to a single entry in the top ten Google search results. 

One of these real estate agents is John Hoole

Smothered by Professionalism - John Hoole Estate Agents (Search Result 1 and 2)

Leave it to a realtor to hog the best location.  The blandly professional looking folks at John Hoole Estate Agents, who service a couple of towns in the South of England are the kings of the John Hoole Google search. 

They offer up no details at all about their company's namesake, as if "John Hoole," like a diamond or eagle were one of those trustworthy icons businesses just get named after.  If ever you''re looking for something a scosh upscale on the quaint Southern Coast of England, I can't think of a reason not to go with John Hoole Estate Agents. What doesn't quite click for me is why a provincial realtor needs to be the international overlord of the search term coveted by John Hooles everywhere, when one or two modest results would do just fine.    

The Case of the Reclaimer (3rd Google Result)

The Reclaimer, who scored a staggering 23 kills on Halo 3 recently!

The John Hoole who calls himself "The Reclaimer" merits special attention.  He's recently turned 21 (happy birthday, John!) and hails from a little town called Chorley in the North, near Manchester. He has a fairly active blog where he dashes off typo-ridden musings about his video game scores, girls, and nights on the town with his mates. Being a computer-type guy, he naturally thinks of his musical collection (newish Weird Al, a comprehensive Genesis collection, etc.)  in terms of how much space it takes up on his hard drive. 

I single him out because he is keenly aware of his position on Google and, judging from his punctuation and tone, he's probably the non-"pacafist" bonehead who commented on my website.  Despite these misgivings, I've come to feel a certain paternal indulgence toward the Reclaimer (happy birthday, John!).  I anxiously surf to his blog and wonder what adversity, what crushing new responsibilities have kept him from posting since April?  Has he gone off to war?  I worry for his sake that he soon won't surface in the first page of search results at all.

What is to be Done

Mark me -- in a year's time I will occupy 3 of the top 5 Google search results, including number one.  In a splendidly 21st Century re-enactment of Hannibal's route of the Roman army in A.D. 216, by means of a pincer movement (or, for readers of delicate sensibility, "double envelopment"), I will gently, lovingly moosh the British Johns into oblivion.  In case you should ever need to counter a similar threat to your Google standings, I have reproduced my plan in full below.

Pincer Movement