Question: I am a masters student at one of the top two universities in the UK and will be applying for PhD positions soon. When I google my (unique) name, the first few results are what you'd expect, my LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and some university web pages. 

However if you keep scrolling and go through the pages of Google's search results, you see some silly forum posts from when I was 12-14 years old, and some poorly written Yahoo Answers questions from the same time. I am now 22 so this was almost 10 years ago.

I know it's stupid but when I was that age no one really taught me how to use the internet properly and so ended up using my full name in a number of places.

I've not written anything offensive and my name isn't on anything objectively bad, but it's just childish silliness (memes, poorly written stories, Yahoo Answers nonsense, and just weird forum posts) and I'm a bit embarrassed to be honest. I feel like as I continue to progress academically, it will become more likely that people will Google me and see all this which might make it likely that I will be judged. Again, it's nothing offensive or objectionable just old young teenager stuff. Benign but embarrassing.

Should I just ignore it and hope that as my career develops these old results get pushed further back in Google's search results? Should I try to remove this stuff from the internet (very difficult as I have lost all these old accounts)?

The stuff I posted back then has little to nothing to do with who I am now professionally, and I would hate for people to think it is. Having a unique name does seem like a curse sometimes and I have made it worse by being extra foolish when I was young.

Answer: 
This question is definitely more of a online reputation management question so my only advice is buckle up and try to anonymize your past actions.

Here are some suggestions:

* Change your username on those forums and remove profile details
	+ Often times this will globally change your name across all your posts
* Contact the forums and ask them to de-associate your account from your posts; Stack Exchange does this so I hope others can too
* Delete/edit your old posts if you can
* Deleting your account can sometimes anonymize your old posts but some sites could maintain your username without a link to a profile

Ultimately, assuming you didn't post anything illegal or bigoted then it's not likely to come back and haunt you; unless you decide to become a politician then EVERYTHING will be used to smear you.
This is the problem of unable to change from your perspective to other's. Pick a person you want to know right now and google their name, would you even scroll to the bottom of the page? No. Just a couple of first results is enough to overwhelm your mind. Even when they have read everything about you, they will feel closer to you, not to mock you.

**By being able to put yourself into other's shoes, you can detach to your emotions and move on.**

See more:

* [Perspective-taking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective-taking)
* [Empathy gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_gap)
* [The Spotlight Effect](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-big-questions/201111/the-spotlight-effect)
* [Detachment (philosophy) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachment_(philosophy))
* [F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content-discovered/?lm=how-people-read-web-eyetracking-evidence&pt=report)
* [Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think (Taming the Mammoth)](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-opinions-run-life.html)