The autocorrect gaslighter

For three years my phone has corrected my own first name to a slightly different first name, belonging to no one I know.

I have corrected it back, dozens of times, with the small red squiggle, with the long-press, with the “add to dictionary” dialog. The phone receives my correction with the air of a polite, patient person who is humouring me for now. Forty-eight hours later it suggests the wrong name again.

There is something quietly comic about this. There is also something quietly something else about this — a small parable about which authority you let into your house, and which corrections you accept without noticing.

I keep correcting it. I will probably keep correcting it. Somewhere in here is a metaphor about the small, ambient ways one is asked to become someone else, in increments, by systems that do not, technically, mean any harm.