Someone wise and Greek once said: Know thyself.

I — someone less Greek, but more technologically savvy — say: Know thy Google-self.

The question of who I am is better left to the people who care about that sort of thing: philosophers, my overly-concerned friends and family, and the analyst I will pay $523.25 per hour during the OCD-breakdown phase of my mid-life crisis.

On the other hand, my Google-self is of immediate and infinite concern to me. The Google-self is easily accessible by “googling” and, depending on your level of googleability, is usually the first version of you future employers/significant others/stalkers will see.

Four years ago, I made the mistake of googling myself. My life would never be the same.

The first link was www.summerbanks.com, followed closely by Hot, Young Girrrls hauVing S*xxxxxx, and !!!Summer Banks, You’re A Winner!!!

According to Google, I was a 4’11’’ amateur porn star with suspiciously large breasts. The 5’11’’ me I had previously recognized as Summer Banks didn’t even make the first page. And the best part is that the “Summer Banks” of www.summerbanks.com probably isn’t even named Summer.

But because of her exploits, anyone who wants to use Google to find out about the approximately 7 of us who actually have the phrase Summer Banks burned on our birth certificates is bombarded with overly-engorged mammaries covered in some viscous substance of questionable origin.

I was seventeen, and I want an official apology from “Summer Banks” for ruining the next four years of my life.

On a mission, with a questionable understanding of Google, I decided to wage a war against the impostor “Summer Banks.” A Google-war. Did she actually think that her porn was going to get her more Internet traffic than my skinny, albeit authentic, Summernaciousness? She was wrong.

I set up camp and spent a few weeks in thought: How could I increase my Google visibility? I couldn’t make my own Web site, as I unfortunately lacked the ability to sit in a room for hours crunching code. And I couldn’t get someone else to host a high-traffic personal Web site if I didn’t start making amateur porn myself.

I considered it for a moment, under the single, naked light in my canvas Google-tent. But I couldn’t stoop to her level. I wasn’t going to give “her” the satisfaction.

What could I, the real Summer Banks, do that was actually Google-worthy? Snarking at fashion misdemeanors and gossiping about supermodels wasn’t exactly going to compete with porn — this was before ANTM and the blog heyday.

I emerged from my tent, determined to find something googleable that wouldn’t require physical exertion or business-casual attire.

To my great relief, I was cast in a play. One link down.

Did another play — that was reviewed. Two links.

But theater was simply too time consuming, and I was still fuming away in my Shakespearean costume on the second Google search page, while “she” enjoyed her place of glory.

I returned to base camp. It was time for heavy artillery.

I had to get bylines. Fast. Bylines are easily googleable and not only prove your existence — if you have no hits on Google you don’t really exist — but also your literacy. “Perfect,” I chuckled maniacally under my breath. “Now my Google-self will be a literate porn star: Take THAT, re@L GuRLs g#t Nesty!”

I wrote. I published. Em-dashes were flying and the HTML could barely match the furious pace at which Word, my loyal sidekick, produced the articles. Surely I could beat “her” now. The pen is mightier than the sword — and the lubricated dildo!

Triumphantly, I returned to Google three years and 362 days after that first fateful search, typed in “Summer Banks” and clicked “I’m Feeling Lucky.”

All I could see were boobs.

I decided I had to switch strategies completely. “Summer Banks” may have won the battle, but “she” was not going to win the war.

I would create my own “Summer Banks.” One that could compete with “her” and her vast legions of balding, middle-aged, middle-American men who tell their families that they’re searching for better mortgages.

If Google didn’t care who I really was, then neither did I.

Back at base camp, I pondered my options. How could I become vastly popular on the Internet without actually doing anything of significance?

I could try for mass confusion. If no one could tell who the real Summer Banks’ Google-self was, then I would settle into the general aura of mystery that comes with a lack of googleability — like those unfortunate people with names like James Johnson, Mary Kennedy or John Doe.

But creating many little “Summer Bankses” would take too much time. I needed something quicker.

And then it came to me, as I watched a flickering Comedy Central feed on the battered, only-two-years-old-yet-outdated MacBook. It was so simple: Create a larger-than-life persona that may or may not have anything to do with me. Then get “my” own TV show and watch the Google hits climb, defeating the impostor “Summer Banks.”

Maybe it seems strange that Stephen Colbert would be my role model in a fight for Google-domination. But because his TV persona “Stephen Colbert” shares his given name and yet is largely written and created by other people, he showed me the way to Google-fame for my name — without having to do much actual work, or porn.

And no one would be able to use Google to figure out the difference between the real Summer Banks and the high visibility creation. At least until the release of the tell-all Wikipedia article.

Finally, I had a solution. All I had to do was find a way to launch my campaign. The television writers and masses of fans that would secure my victory would come later.

Last night, under the single, naked light in my tent, I sat down and wrote this column.

I have not yet begun to Google-fight. 

Summer Banks isn’t ashamed of her hopeless war.