AUDIO: Member of the week

Bring Your Own is a nomadic storytelling series that takes place in living rooms, backyards and other intimate spaces within the community. Each month, seven storytellers have 7 minutes to respond to a theme. BYO airs on “All Things New Orleans” and is a biweekly podcast on WWNO.org.

In today’s world, having an online profile page to represent yourself — whether it’s on Facebook, LinkedIn, or OkCupid, is commonplace. But this story — originally told on April 15, 2013 at the Old Firehouse on Mandeville Street and later produced by Laine Kaplan-Levenson — by New Orleans-based writer, actor and spoken word poet Gian Smith harks back to the retro time of social media, when these digital IDs were still uncharted territory.