The internet has been going through twists and turns in the last couple of years, as more and more websites battle for the supremacy of turning you into a "somebody." This noteriety comes with a price: anybody can say anything they want about themselves, or you. The consequences of this information can be extreme.In this story, an 16-year-old London kid was going to have a party with about 30 invited guests. However, details of the bash were put on You Tube, and several dozen uninvited teens crashed the gates. They trashed the place, stole booze, beat up the birthday boy's brother, and broke his father's nose. 6 teens were arrested.
Bummer night. You can tell it's a You Tube world when a 16-year-old has thirty friends to invite over for a birthday party.
I went on Facebook the other day and took a look at a few of the people that have labelled me as 'friend.' If you're not hip to Facebook, a friend is someone that knew you a hundred years ago, writes you an email, and then never writes you again. You're put into a "friend list," and there you remain.
You're like a collector's item from their distant past. Maybe they pull you out once in a while, blow some dust off, look at you in the light of the window, and put you back. Maybe they print out your picture and draw mustaches on it. Either way, you're theirs to keep, unless you 'unfriend' them, and who would want to be so rude as to do that?
Facebook is the Ebay of society. Instead of trading old lamps and hockey cards, you get the chick that sat next to you in first grade and the guy that made everyone laugh with the hand-under-the-armpit fart trick.
Of the 150 Facebook friends that I have, I'll bet that I've heard from 10 of them more than once. The rest just kind of hang out in cyberspace. I suppose they check in once in a while, but I'll never know it. If I update my "profile" by saying that I'm reading a newspaper on the john, three friends will probably write to tell me that I'm being too graphic, while the other 147 remain in the shadows, eavesdropping on me like spooky CIA agents. Were I, say, to write that I'm throwing a party on Friday, 150 people might descend on my house unannounced. And if I were a 16-year-old boy writing about having a party, well, let's just say dad wouldn't be too impressed.
You Tube, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Blogger (which you're reading now), My Space, the list goes on. I've logged into a few of them, and it amazes me the amount of personal information that ends up there. People that use them need to ask themselves some hard questions: do I really know who's looking at me right now? And if so, do I really want them looking at me right now?One thing that this English kid's hard luck story does prove is the answer to the most important party question. Where is the best place to have a party? Someone else's place.
More on the party that got out of hand here.
1 comment:
Oh come on Sean! I stalk you all the time on facebook and pop in from time to time :) Will that sentence stand up in a court of law? LOL. It is kind of neat to be a voyeaur to someone you have not seen in twenty years! (Ok, I will admit that out of a hundred or so FB "friends" I only keep up on a few too!). And to combat the who is looking at me, I have restrictions on many people on that list and if that makes me rude well so freaking be it. Do you really care if you seem rude? Somehow you have not stuck me as being all that sensitive about that LOL. :)
Post a Comment