Friday 9 May 2008

No, no - that's not me...

Found myself flicking through my photos on Facebook today and cringing at the fact there are some there with me smoking. Not through any sense of it being a ridiculous habit (fully aware - 'tis simply neither the time nor the place for that debate) but because it's public.

Which is also ridiculous. Obviously, in fact - evidently, I smoke in public but why should it make me cringe that it's in the virtual public world. Add to that looking drunk, generally not doing sport or in reality, any none green/PC activity...

I'd put on any CV that I'm a highly socialable person who loves the pub and hanging out with mates but when presented with teh evidence of that in the virtual world - it makes me balk. Bizarre... I suspect it goes back to what the essential reason is for any profile page - it's a brand, it's the best of you, it's everything you wish you were - not the real you...but it should be.

Ewan Semple has talked about htis before - trust the people with the flaws publicly aired on Facebook. couldn't agree more - but bloody hell it's just hard. It's all very well me voicing the opinion and waving the flag of honesty but when I do it myself it's rather cringeworthy. It's like carrying your kiddy photo album around with you on a great big virtual sandwich board.

BUT - in order to be a truly trustworthy online type person I shall have to bite the bullet...but I shall be leaving pithy comments to assert the fact that it's always a bad shot...and never the real me...

1 comment:

David Kohl said...

At least you're fortunate enough to be far more photogenic than someone like me!

And if a profile etc is too polished, it comes across as false - some editing is fine, but it's guaranteed someone else will have a picture etc just as bad to replace it with!

Personally, I also think companies will be less and less bothered by facebook/flickr drunken foolishness etc, as almost everyone will have at least one drunken episode in their life - and they'll essentially rule out ever employing anyone!


(Oh, just to let you know, my blog address has now changed to www.thewayoftheweb.net)