I recently read an article on the importance of googling yourself, and ensuring your online profile (combination of site searches) was safe, professional and clean - keg stand photos not recommended.
Weeding through my pictures, blogs, articles, etc. I wanted to make sure that anything that popped up was ok. Luckily for me, Jamie Shea returns tons of results for NATO spokesperson. My grandma once mistook me for him, and wondered how my trip to Haiti went… oh g-ma.
Nevertheless, good time to pop out at me - when schools are starting to search our personalities online, and we have the option of creating what people can see, why not mould to our benefit?
I recently had a discussion with a friend about branding ourselves - through 'facebook profile pics' and linkedin profiles, we are constantly determining what we would like people to think of us. As soon as I add someone on facebook, I scroll to their 'groups' and check what groups they chose to be part of. "I drink every weekend" is not a group I care to see on my coworkers wall… however hilarious.
We clearly want people to see something specific - photos, groups, profile pictures, job descriptions. We have the ability to recreate ourselves every time we post a photo or a comment or a status.
But do we even know who we are? Do our friendships last over facebook, because we remember that person in the pictures from last summer? Or the one good picture from the party that everyone got mad at? When this is the branding we use for ourselves, we can't blame the girl wearing too much make up, or the guy who gels his hair in a mohawk. We are all branded, and seemingly, the internet and social networking is providing us with the avenue to have control over this branding.
What do I want my grade 8 boyfriend to think about me when he pops up on facebook? Whatever it is, I have the control over my pictures, quotes, education, and notes to tell him the story of my life 10 years after we parted. What does this say about our personalities? Are any of us real?
We all try so hard to be something - or perhaps more poignantly, nothing. And are any of us succeeding?
I digress.
I wanted to clean things up, and I tried my best. So I went through and cleaned the best I could (though those university 80's party photos were a tough delete from the facebook page).
And just for your enjoyment, scroll to page 5, for a lovely reminder of why you should not allow yourself to have your photo taken at nerdy undergrad functions. They will haunt you forever.
http://www.wlu.ca/documents/19994/Sociology_Newsletter_October_2006.pdf
Weeding through my pictures, blogs, articles, etc. I wanted to make sure that anything that popped up was ok. Luckily for me, Jamie Shea returns tons of results for NATO spokesperson. My grandma once mistook me for him, and wondered how my trip to Haiti went… oh g-ma.
Nevertheless, good time to pop out at me - when schools are starting to search our personalities online, and we have the option of creating what people can see, why not mould to our benefit?
I recently had a discussion with a friend about branding ourselves - through 'facebook profile pics' and linkedin profiles, we are constantly determining what we would like people to think of us. As soon as I add someone on facebook, I scroll to their 'groups' and check what groups they chose to be part of. "I drink every weekend" is not a group I care to see on my coworkers wall… however hilarious.
We clearly want people to see something specific - photos, groups, profile pictures, job descriptions. We have the ability to recreate ourselves every time we post a photo or a comment or a status.
But do we even know who we are? Do our friendships last over facebook, because we remember that person in the pictures from last summer? Or the one good picture from the party that everyone got mad at? When this is the branding we use for ourselves, we can't blame the girl wearing too much make up, or the guy who gels his hair in a mohawk. We are all branded, and seemingly, the internet and social networking is providing us with the avenue to have control over this branding.
What do I want my grade 8 boyfriend to think about me when he pops up on facebook? Whatever it is, I have the control over my pictures, quotes, education, and notes to tell him the story of my life 10 years after we parted. What does this say about our personalities? Are any of us real?
We all try so hard to be something - or perhaps more poignantly, nothing. And are any of us succeeding?
I digress.
I wanted to clean things up, and I tried my best. So I went through and cleaned the best I could (though those university 80's party photos were a tough delete from the facebook page).
And just for your enjoyment, scroll to page 5, for a lovely reminder of why you should not allow yourself to have your photo taken at nerdy undergrad functions. They will haunt you forever.
http://www.wlu.ca/documents/19994/Sociology_Newsletter_October_2006.pdf