Miko Exposed!

A Just A Little Bit Orange Feature. By Clara Pettitt. Copyright © 3/9/1999. All Rights Reserved.

Miko was born in 1988 in the tropical climate of Florida. An unrepentant sun worshipper, she spends her days moving from windowsill to windowsill in search of its warming rays.

That's right. Miko is a cat.

Those of you who have exhaustively explored this site discovered long ago that Miko is a pseudonym for Clara. But for those of you who haven't...

How did this farce begin, and why is it ending now? I'll tell you.

Back in 1996, I was trying to recreate an online banking enrollment problem with the secondary name field on a credit card (don't ask). To accomplish this, I added one of my cats to my credit card account, selecting Miko over her pals Meatloaf and Bigmouth, names hard to pass off as human. In due order her credit card arrived and she "used" it to get an email account, purchase products through the Internet, and become part of cyberspace.

In the summer of 1997, I started a homepage at Geocities. In December of 1997, part of the site spun off to become "Just A Little Bit Orange" in Geocities Fashion Avenue. I adopted the name of Miko for the site, partly to protect my privacy, and partly because at that time I assumed it would never be seen by another human being.

I was wrong. I developed "sunless.com" because an Internet search for the keywords "sunless tanning" turned up almost nothing. But by 1998, people who entered those keywords found me. Or they found Miko, which was the same thing. Under the name of Miko, I comforted the pale.

In March of 1999, a woman whose opinion I respect told me that Miko should retire because at this point she confuses visitors to sunless.com. The extent of the confusion I had spawned didn't dawn on me until I posted a reply to someone under my own name in the message board. From the person's response it was obvious she didn't know who I was. I had the sinking sensation that Cyrano de Bergerac must have felt when Christian (initially) got the girl.

There are several links scattered throughout sunless.com that lead to an explanation of who and what Miko really is. It's apparent to me now that what seemed glaringly obvious was not. So Miko is going to retire. It's going to take some time to remove all references to her.

I am going to miss her because her "foreign" name kept the xenophobes out of my life. I am sure she will have no problem with going back to sunning full time...

Sincerely,
clara AT sunless DOT com

March 9, 1999

Dear Miko:
Sorry if I missed it in the site, but what is your background if I may ask — your name is obviously not American.

Miko's reply:
I am afraid I had a good laugh when you asked about the "un-American" origins of the name Miko...I am of the belief that if you are living in America (the United States, that is), you're an American, regardless of your cultural background. Meow.