My redneck past on repeat
There's a line from an old Ben Folds Five song that I've been thinking about lately. "If you're afraid they might discover your redneck past, there are a hundred ways to cover your redneck past." (The name of the song is, of course, Your Redneck Past.)
But if you've tried to raise the collar on that red neck of yours in the digital age, well, good luck. That's what I love and hate about Facebook – except for the issue of digital access, it offers a democratic view of your past. One day you're confirming Enos, that guy from 7th grade who was already starting his first moustache, as your friend, and the next thing you know he's tagging you in photos of you trying to look all tough in your Poison '86 "Look What the Cat Dragged In" tour t-shirt, mud-hogging on your Honda three-wheeler, for all for all 234 of your friends and colleagues to see.
Sure, you can untag yourself in photos. You can adjust your privacy settings. You can even delete friends. But there's always something new around the corner, Facebook, blog or otherwise, working overtime to pull together all the pieces of your life. Especially the ones you'd rather forget. I say embrace it. If that's really who you were, by now it's ancient history, and anyone who knows you today, well, they'll understand. And they'll appreciate your unguarded transparency.
There's a lesson in here for companies, too, but let's save that one for another post. I really need to go untag myself in Dave's "Wrestlemania 88" photo album before my profile updates.
Comments
B,
This is a great angle on the Facebook experience. I recently watched the director's cut of Bladerunner. His job is to kill the aging androids. I thought a job of the future would be to kill someone's digital past- for hire. Or offer services to alter relics or artifacts of someone's past so you could change history to protect their political or executive future.
Imagine virtual detectives and digital hitmen roaming the bytes of your past annihilating all evidence of your misgivings, paving the road to your new pristine tomorrow in exchange for money, services or whatever form the currency of our reputation will take.
Uh Bennett.... that's me right behind you in that photo....yeah, the scrawny kid with the Aerosmith "Permanent Vacation" T-shirt. As David Crosby said, sometimes you just got to let your freak flag fly!
Oh, but seeing your past just makes you all the more interesting, BH. Layers of complexity [and comedy] make you more human - thus more engaging. Of course, you wouldn't want that picture from the post office to show up but then you'd need a more strategic communications strategy. Or a lawyer.
I have no doubt that there will be a "digital past-killer" job in the not-so-distant future, if there aren't already people doing that.
Actually, from what I've seen there are more than a few people who could use someone to wipe out their digital present.
I just became FB friends with a bunch of people from elementary and
junior high school. First, they've aged a lot -- good thing I
haven't! You also realize the great distances to which people
diverge; they now form sections of society I've heard about, but hardly interact with. The sailor's wife. The divorcee. The high
school dropout trying to make good. Fascinating.
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