Monday, March 2, 2009

internet epiphay

in an act of boredom, distraction, and in the endless pursuit of useless information, i joined twitter today. to be more accurate, i joined twitter last week but didn't start posting/following/whateveryoucallit until today. in my first few hours of activity, i was confronted by the age-old social networking conundrum: to deny or not to deny?

it happens to the best of us: there we are, minding our own internet business, when lo and behold we get a "friend request" [or in twitter's case, follower request] from a random person we don't know. we know enough of this person to postulate that perhaps they run in similar circles, or if you're me there's the very plausible possibility that you've in fact had extensive conversations with this person but due to a defective memory, have absolutely no recollection to confirm this hypothesis. in any case, the question of whether to internet reject or not lingers and this is no easy dilemma for those as deeply compassionate as myself [if you just LOLed, REPENT!]. in all seriousness, some people's egos are a little bit more fragile than others and one never knows whose internet feelings are being hurt in the wake of one thoughtless clicking of the mouse. however, there's also the desire to make the internet relationships at least minimally reflect the intimacy of real-life intimacy and the want for a certain amount of internet privacy as a result. and here's where the epiphany came: there is no such thing as internet privacy.

it's the ultimate of oxymorons! the whole premise of these internet blogs, miniblogs, and social networking platforms is that one would be able to publish thoughts, feelings, emotions with immediacy and to the world [wide web dot crazayzeeness dot com]. so the desire for internet privacy is kind of absurd, if you think about it. [no seriously, think about it! absurd.] so now, with this new epiphanic mantra in metaphorical tow, i am officially relinquishing my desire for privacy on the internet [or at least on the social networking internet, i'm not about to hand out my social security # or c.c. info. geesh.].

let me tell you, it already feels like a breath of fresh air. look forward to shamless tweets, transparent blogs, and probably a really crass slip-up or fivethousand in the not-too-distant future.


and now, back to my regularly scheduled homeworking.


++ edit: i have yet to get back to that homeworking. i'm too distracted by this blog and twitter. eesh! this was all a mistake. a big mistake. a big delightful waytoofun mistake.

5 comments:

Allie, Dearest said...

You're hilarious.

Anonymous said...

haha nice post jess. yeah i think i gave up wanting the oxymoron of internet privacy awhile ago, too..

good to see you on twitter!

Unknown said...

I guess I'm one of those idealists (traditionalists, anti-technologists, old-farts, whatever you want to call us) who still believes privacy makes as much sense in the online world as in the physical, and so employs the "ignore friend request" button (and sometimes even the "delete friend" button) with gleeful liberality. Don't succumb to the hegemony of technology! Fight for your human dignity!

The_LoneTomato said...

Ah, I see it now.

I'm pretty open about myself in my blog but there are places where I don't go...not for my sake but for my friends' sake.

Anonymous said...

I think the trick is putting something out there for everyone to see that is not trivial banter. I signed up for twitter but haven't posted anything yet. I'm a little worried about the tyranny of it all and don't want to become so enmeshed with the flow of words without reflecting on stuff a bit more.

I like the way you communicate. You are hilarious, honest and one of those that is worth reading.