Urinating next to a car, drunkenly flashing or being passed out in the streets used to be the Kodak moments that only your friends could retrieve.
Today, these are the photos that Facebook groups are made of, groups such as “30 reason girls should call it a night” featuring more than 175,000 members with photos of girls collapsed on the street, chugging beer upside down, peeing, or any other classic moment that can be witnessed in Ybor City at 2:00 a.m.
Exhibitionism, narcissism, and drunk-pride are the phenomena that social networking and video uploading sites like Facebook, Bebo, YouTube or MySpace are actively promoting. With Facebook, you can upload photos, write a small biography, write public notes, and literally publicize yourself in any manner you want.
Most important of all, the profile picture that everyone meticulously ponders about, while not studying for that test the next day. I prefer to have shirtless pictures of myself, with my abs and pecs in the most egotistical pose I can think of.
Yet, besides this erratic behavior, truly one of the positive outcomes of these websites is that they are exposing reality. People are beginning to tell the truth about themselves and their thoughts.
This is a welcome change from the personal public relations “campaigns” that people, and especially older generations, have been accustomed to. The personal PR machine creates loveless marriages and sinless Christian families. Sexuality, religion, and politics were private matters in the time of our grandparents, but not any longer.
As “Generation Facebook,” we look forward to exposing our ideas, and ourselves, to friends and strangers.
Even when we lie on the internet, the truth always seems to bleed through the web pages.
Take for example chronic cheaters and players who have been caught red handed through “tagging” photos on Facebook.
Or more significantly politicians like former Senator George Allen, who was video-taped calling S.R. Sidarth, volunteer for Democrat James Webb, “macaca” – a racial slur also meaning monkey. Though he was leading in the polls by a large margin in 2006, once the video was uploaded on YouTube Senator Allen’s racist remarks ultimately ignited his loss. On the opposite side of the aisle, there are countless videos of Hillary Clinton contradicting herself.
Yet, UT and university professors across the country are warning students that they should be careful what they choose to show, since employers are now using social networking sites as a kind of background check. Any inappropriate photos, videos, or written words can cost you your job – from the hiring process through and throughout your work days. Employees have been fired for criticizing their company or revealing confidential information.
University administrators are also accessing these websites to search for conduct policy violations. For example, students from Northern Kentucky University were charged with conduct policy violations when photos of a keg in their dorm room uploaded on Facebook.
Law enforcement officers are also searching for students, who foolishly, post photos of bongs, smoking weed, or snowboarding some Colombian snow. Even jokes can be targeted; a student from the University of Oklahoma was harassed by the Secret Service for referencing an assassination attempt on President Bush.
So should you be careful what you post online? I say no!
What some older generations and some of our peers believe is that we need to continue lying to ourselves and to each other. Are we expected to constantly endure a personal public relations campaign? Should I take photos and videos of myself studying, reading books on quantum physics, researching, and doing calculus on a blackboard for Facebook and YouTube? No.
Let the truth, and therefore justice, prevail. Now there is a chance for our politicians, idols, employers, parents, and professors to come out of the shadows under their guise as infallible gods. Let our politicians explain their contradictory statements, or racial slurs. Let’s see photos of our colleagues tipsy in a company party and drunk after Ybor night. The beautiful girls or handsome guys who want to show their bodies after months of sweating at the gym and dieting.
Through our life we will go through the pitfalls of ignorance and the drowning of absolutism and because of this we will undoubtedly regret a photo, video or comment made on the internet. But we are human beings who learn through mistakes. The truth can truly set us free and create a better society where honesty is the “only policy.” I choose the truth, what will you choose?