Made an interesting survey of Karls on the Internet

Briefly last week I thought I might have an identity crisis, but it turns out I’m just becoming more unique.

The man on the radio asked me if I’d ever searched my name on the internet and if I needed to repair what’s out there. So naturally, with the World Wide Web as close as my cell phone, I did as I was told.

It seems the most popular Karl Terry out there seems to be an old dude at least 20 years my senior who is a long-time rock and roll singer in Liverpool, England.

Apparently he played the Cavern Club before the Beatles.

The stuff that’s out there has him covering Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and other vintage 1950s music.

That’s pretty cool because this guy was evidently still performing as late as 2021. What a guy to be mistaken for even if he doesn’t look anything like me.

Another hit was on a plein air artist from Wittersham, England. This guy actually has initials after his name, something I’ll never accomplish. Apparently the letters RSMA stand for Royal Society of Marine Artists.

This guy paints stuff I might actually hang on my office walls if I wanted Marine landscapes or seascapes. Very realistic art and I like that in art.

The third one that drew my eye was a near miss of my name Terry Karl without a comma separating the two names. I have two problems with my name. The first is I’m Karl with a K and often feel the need to introduce myself that way. The second is that I have three first names. Karl, Wayne and Terry are all very common first names. Therefore I’m constantly called Terry.

But back to Terry Karl, who is actually a woman and not from England. She’s a Stanford professor of political science and Latin studies. Apparently she climbed into the Google rankings during the Me Too era because she came forward to say that a fellow professor at Harvard had previously sexually harassed her.

There must have been something to it because 18 other females at the university told of their own encounters with the slime ball. Didn’t matter because he was tenured.

There are lots of results for Carl Terry spelled with a C. Literally dozens of them on Facebook, but only a few on Facebook spelled Karl Terry.

At one point a few years ago, when I searched my name I would easily come up with lots of hits for by-lined stories and columns posted online. Not so much anymore. I have to add more key words or scroll down further.

I do have one reference on the first search page that clicks to a larger group of my work, but I don’t dominate the search like I used to. For someone who has always been a legend in their own mind like me that constitutes an identity crisis.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]