1. The Only One
Before you thought about work/life balance, professionalism, or online security, there was just one email. You were a simple, blissful idiot.
2. Personal
You learned that only a baby fawn mixes all aspects of existence into a single stew of email chaos. So you created an account just for family and friends—memes, photos, and half-hearted attempts to meet for coffee. You marveled at your newfound organizational prowess. Then it dawned on you that you had no idea which email to use for logins, work emails, and subscriptions to your friends’ newsletters.
3. Sensitive
Next came an address for accounts and institutions holding your most sensitive data. You used this to log in to your very secure bank’s website. Then you had to decide whether or not you’d also give it to the neighborhood dentist, who stowed your intake packet in a translucent plastic bin that sat in the corner of their office/exam room—where anyone could stroll in and find your Social Security number emblazoned on page one. Your choice haunts you.
4. Work
Your employer set this up. It was beautiful. Because when your bedtime reading was an email from your best friend about her new bunny’s adorable hijinks, you were never interrupted by an after-hours request that you hop into a meeting at sunrise.
5. Side Gig
Full of hope, you shared this email with friends and family in case of referrals. Then you learned that your aunt didn’t understand why she shouldn’t give your personal email address to anyone looking for someone who “does something with the internet.”
6. Side Gig Sensitive
You remembered not to use your public-facing address for the separate bank account you set up after you decided to test out a business monetizing your ability to write listicles.
7. Second Side Gig
Branding.
Back to 2. Second Side Gig (Barbara-Specific), Formerly Known as “Personal”
Naif no more, you repurposed your personal account when your aunt’s friend, Barbara, flooded it with urgent requests that you edit her ex-friend’s casserole out of every picture in her cooking club’s online scrapbook.
8. New Personal
You shared this with your friends—and the members of your family who vowed not to reveal it to your aunt, her loose-lipped kids, or Barbara.
9. Junk
You realized you needed an account just for coupons, offers, and marketing freebies you may or may not ever look at. You read that you could use this one for online shopping too, if you were to check out as a guest, but dismissed this as hogwash. Paying with a credit card would have created an unacceptable crossover between junk and sensitive information.
10. Shopping
An online retailer seemed trustworthy enough to open an account with. Since a credit card was involved, you considered using your banking address. But this was an unacceptable slippery slope that could have only ended in the complete undoing of your entire email ecosystem.
Back to 9. Junk/Shopping Hybrid, Formerly Known as “Junk”
You got sloppy and used your junk email address to create an account with a retailer instead of checking out as a guest. This impulsive compromise of protocol was prompted by a lucrative coupon, and it felt, for a moment, like a worthy trade—your data for five dollars off sea salt caramel protein powder.
11. New New Personal
This newer-new personal account began when family members cc’d you on chain letters, and a gym friend sent a series of dubious blog posts about nutritional supplements.
12. Personal/Junk Hybrid
You received an invitation to your high school reunion, created this account, and shared it with old acquaintances you unilaterally nominated and named ‘Most Likely to Non-Consensually Subscribe You to Their Newsletter.’
13. Personal/Work Hybrid
You made this one to plan a social outing on a weekday with colleagues you didn’t want to hear from on weekends—colleagues who, you were certain, did not have newsletters.
14. Personal/Side Gig/Second Side Gig/or Third Side Gig?/Barbara Hybrid
You created this address in order to launch your newsletter.
