October 12, 2010: Matthew Good Band - The Future is X-Rated

Matthew Good Band - The Future is X-Rated: youtube.com/watch?v=vVxmWYN-D0A

I don't particularly like my online presence. I realize the irony of this statement, being stated over a blog, a venue openly viewable by anyone adding greatly to my online presence. It's like saying that you have no vanity as you drunkenly muss your hair in the mirror at a bar. An online presence isn't necessary in any way, nor is it all that interesting or relevant or even accurate. It's just a unique venue, easily manipulated.

When facebook started to catch on I had some friends tell me that I had to sign up, even going so far as to threaten to create a profile for me. I remember asking some of these friends, one night, how many of them had been asked out on a date by a stranger over facebook and they all raised their hands. That made me uncomfortable. I saw it all as a means to avoid real interaction and real relationships and I was socially awkward enough as it was. And I relented for a long time. It took the moving away of some beautiful and loved friends to get me to join, for they refused to use most other means of communication to stay in contact. And I wanted their contact, even if it was as part of a venue I didn't agree with.

And I'll be honest, I've asked people out on dates over facebook.

I read a terrible telling of the future the other day where the author stated that some day you'll look back on your online persona and either a) not recognize that person or b) hate that person. And I've looked at old pictures of myself that are online and don't hate that person. Sometimes he looks remarkably different, yes, and I sometimes wonder what has happened to him. And the same applies to my friends; they all look so different now. But hate never factors in, really.

I understand his underlying point, though (or rather what I would consider to be the underlying point, however much the author may have been conscious of it). We are 3 dimensional, emotionally complex, intellectually fragile creatures who cannot be defined by one picture, one profile or even an amassed online persona. But we create these things for ourselves though we are constantly changing and evolving and becoming greater than even our own perceptions of ourselves. It's natural to see old pictures of yourself and feel uncomfortable for we are no longer those people; our bodies change, our opinions change, our perceptions change to the point where you are physically, emotionally and intellectually not that person anymore.

Have you ever looked at the facebook profile of a person who has died? Doesn't it feel strangely perverse? These people are gone and cannot take down that picture of themselves that was taken of them drunkenly mussing their hair in a mirror of a bar. Do you think they want to be remembered that way? One cannot be remembered but for each living persons individual remaining memories.