Remember 2011? We uttered the word deets, wore bandage dresses, and became obsessed with Words with Friends. And Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner "accidentally" (he claimed) tweeted a picture of his penis. Then on June 6, 2011, he held a press conference (open in new tab) and said my name as the woman he sexted.

This last part may not be burned into your memory, but for me it is as vivid as the Snooki Poof hair trend I tried that year. (In 2011, many of us wanted to look like the cast of Jersey Shore.)

That day in June, I was 23 years old and working as a social media manager for a global PR firm in Dallas with a major airline as a client. I was tweeting a variation of "I'm sorry for your loss" to an angry passenger when I received a call from the manager of my apartment building. Apparently, a man in his 40s, who knew my full name and address, had asked what time I would be home from work. To my chagrin, the apartment manager gave me his phone number. I dialed it immediately.

"ABC News." [It was obviously a prank. I tried to hang up.

"Wait. Are you Megan Broussard, or Megan Broussard's connection to Weiner?

Click. Because I had to deal with tweets complaining about OJ on the plane. But then I got a call from CNN and a call from the Houston Chronicle: "Boo, it better not be you. And a text from my mother: "No comment. I didn't know what was going on until a co-worker came by my desk.

"So you got good at tweeting," he said. Then he saw the look on my face and realized that his skeevy, flirty banter wasn't getting through and had to explain to me what the hell was going on.

Apparently, a 20-something woman in Texas named Megan Broussard had a scandalous online exchange with New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, who was 46 at the time.

What made this coincidence even crazier was that we shared the same middle name (Elizabeth) and I was in the process of transferring to the New York office of my company. Another colleague asked me, "To be with your boyfriend?"

What was going on?

Then a Twitter notification arrived on my personal account: "TMZ is following you. This was especially after a journalist tagged me in a tweet that he shared with thousands of followers. After that, all I could do was sit back and watch my online reputation go down in flames.

Women shared that they thought home wreckers like me should die; men with usernames like phelon added me to their mailing lists and sent me unsolicited genital portraits. One of them had a decomposing corpse in a wheelchair as his profile picture.

My Facebook wall, remember writing there? At least I could count on my hometown friends to remember my youthful good reputation and to shy away from the absurd allegations that I was a famous Jezebel.

Their basic sentiment: "We support whatever you do. No matter what the haters say: you are not ugly."

It was time to suspend their social media accounts.

It was also the end of the day and, even more frightening, time to go home. If reporters could track down my address and contact information, who was to say that the crazies harassing me online wouldn't be able to locate me?

Once safely inside my apartment, I double-locked the door and stacked a couple of shabby chic IKEA dressers and chairs as a second barrier. Just in case, I took out my Louisville Slugger.

Over the next 24 hours, the exact spelling of the real dick photo recipient's name (Meagan Broussard, note the first a) was released, as was her lingerie selfie. She gave a televised interview to ABC News, and after the second interview (with Sean Hannity of FOX News), national coverage quickly went downhill. But local news in this conservative city was still abuzz.

About a week later, I was in the waiting room of my OB/GYN when I saw this broadcast. Then a nurse came out with a clipboard and read the names featured on the news, and the air in the room was sucked in.

At the end of that year I moved to New York City and in 2012 I went freelance. At that time, I had a problem with my online reputation. Forget the drunken college photos that my mom warned me about. When a recruiter Googled me, the algorithm displayed a half-naked woman and a Wiener wiener.

Occasionally I would get a response and an opportunity to explain the unfortunate coincidence. Other times they chirped like crickets and I wondered if I should have brought it up or if it was just an oddity. Eventually, I got paranoid and put a disclaimer in my social media bio that I was not Anthony Weiner's cyber mistress.

We didn't look much alike, and I made my spelling clear, but most people didn't notice. Even Megan Broussard, three years later on Facebook, asked, "Why are you using my name on LinkedIn?"

She messaged me, "I'm not a LinkedIn user.

The worst part was that I actually felt dirty and guilty, like I was branded with a virtual scarlet letter. I felt embarrassed, as if I had participated in some illicit shenanigans with a politician. I would go out on a date or meet a new friend, not knowing if they would go home and google and gasp. I blamed her for the stain on my honor. [The mayoral election, the infamous "Carlos Danger" incident, and the self-titled documentary. Each time, our (Megan and I) names flooded the search engines once again. I felt sorry that other women with unfortunate names like mine would pay the price for someone else's indiscretion.

In November 2017, Weiner went to jail and this story became an interesting one to tell at parties. Until recently, that is, until I watched the documentary series Framing Britney Spears and realized it wasn't actually that funny.

The credits rolled and my mind was blown. I thought of a passage from Glennon Doyle's "Untamed" that I had read in my book club: "Bold girls irritate us. Their brazen defiance and unwillingness to follow directions make us want to put them back in their cages. "In 2007, I felt that way about the head-shaving, umbrella-wielding, "rebellious" Britney; in 2011, I felt that way about Meghan, who "got bolder." Meghan didn't hide from the negative spotlight, and was brazen about her relationships on social media. That was infuriating. As Doyle writes, my feelings were a direct result of socialization. We are "conditioned to distrust and dislike strong, confident girls and women."

We are "conditioned to disbelieve and dislike strong, confident girls and women.

My own gender bias led me to treat Megan unfairly. I was always much more angry with Megan than with Weiner for putting us through this. How can I call myself a feminist if I hold a woman, a member of the general public, to a higher standard than an elected male member of Congress?

I resolved to check myself in the future. But sometimes the universe (aka iPhone) listens and responds to your thoughts. And so I got an ad for a podcast that, among other topics, revisits women who have been maligned in the near past.

Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes, hosts of You're Wrong About, became my media mindfulness mentors. They guided me through decades of oversimplified narratives and coded language targeting women who, according to the mainstream media, "are wrong about being women," including Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding, and Anna Nicole Smith. "

I found strength in reflecting and getting back on track. Yes, I had every right to be frightened and upset by the online harassment, but Megan was likely worse off than I was. My anger was misplaced. Not only did I not deserve to be treated badly online, Megan Broussard did not deserve to be treated that way either.

I know that watching one documentary or writing one essay is not enough to cure my cultural blind spot. I am still fighting my own conditioning and want to learn more, but I hope that by sharing my story, others will take a hard, good look at the outdated lenses we use to view and judge women in the spotlight. It is outdated to persecute "bad women" like the aviator frames. We can all do better.

So please add this article to the page that comes up when you Google that weiner. No more embarrassment.

And to Megan Broussard: I'm sorry.