Alexandra Petri explains, in a funny way, what your e-mail address says about you and talks about changing fashions in the world of email. It also includes a helpful guide, here’s an example:
@YourWorkEmail You either work somewhere important or don’t understand the concept behind e-mail. You have a tendency to forward people joke e-mails with picture attachments.
I have long been a follower of email fashion. I think I originally subscribed to The Well because an @well.com email address had a certain amount of cachet and because I knew my ISP email address wouldn’t have any staying power. Then I realized that vanity domains were where it was at. I registered rc3.org as a place to get mail (and have a home page, of all things) before blogs even existed. Eventually I switched to Gmail (although my vanity email address and my well.com email address still work perfectly well) mainly for simplicity. When you tell someone “gmail dot com” over the phone you never have to spell anything, and nobody looks down on you for using Gmail.
I certainly haven’t used my work email for anything personal for at least 15 years. It’s so gauche.