The Mike Lee Project

Just for yucks, I decided to create a new website. It’s an idea I had years ago – The Mike Lee Project.

Back in 2005, a filmmaker named Grace Lee created an entertaining documentary called The Grace Lee Project. It chronicled all the Grace Lee’s she knew, showing how utterly common her name is.

I too have a common name. Really. Back in college, I knew of at least 23 Mike & Michael Lee’s. At a previous Big Five firm at which I worked, there were around 17. My last company had 5. We’d get each other’s emails and packages all the time. I once received a lunch invite from a cute coworker. When I replied, “Sure!” she wrote back, “Oops, wrong Mike Lee. Sorry.” Awww. *sniff*

So when I wrote to Grace about her project, she joked that I should do a Mike Lee Project too. Well, I’m no filmmaker. But as a web developer, I figured, why not put up a website? The Mike Lee Project is currently a wiki built off of free MediaWiki software. Any other Mike & Michael Lee can add themselves to the list.

In seeding the wiki with starter content, I found a heck of a lot of Mike & Michael Lee’s. There’s a Michael Lee who’s been the drummer for Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, a Michael Lee character in the show The Wire (great show, BTW), and all sorts of politicians, journalists, actors, programmers, designers, and professors. They’re white, black, Chinese, Korean, and who knows what else.

BTW, in case you’re wondering why I didn’t call it The Michael Lee Project, it’s just because I’ve created a personal brand around “Mike Lee”. And also because michaelleeproject.com is a bit longer to type. But in any case, I nabbed that domain name too. Heh.

P.S. I also just added a survey so other Mike & Michael Lee’s can indicate whether they’re Chinese, Korean, English, Irish, or something else. I don’t expect a lot of responses, but hey, why not?

Author: Mike Lee

An idealistic realist, humanistic technologist & constant student.

2 thoughts on “The Mike Lee Project”

  1. You’re jealous, aren’t you? As well you should be – cuz one day, all the Mike Lee’s and Michael Lee’s are going to rise up and take over the world! Muhahaha!

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