view my photo comments

I just spent the past 2 hours looking through Facebook photo albums that I've had the audacity to post and share with the world.  Okay, this is not exactly true.  Ever since Facebook created privacy controls, I've been a fan, and I've made it next to impossible for people to view anything I post on Facebook, unless they're a friend.  Even still, and after careful review of my albums, I share a whole fucking lot with the 800-some friends I've chosen to let into my online life on Facebook.

And you know what?  I'm okay with it.  Because after careful review, which is clearly what I've spent the last two hours doing while downing PBR's, I am totally at peace with the photos that I've posted on Facebook.  Since this is my blog and I do what I want on it, I'm gonna go full disclosure on your ass and admit that I literally LOL'ed at a good amount of my photo captions.  I never realized how funny I was until I gave it time, revisited, and laughed my drunk ass off at how funny I was.  Maybe you don't think I'm as funny as I think I am, and that's totally okay, but you're an idiot.

More than my hilariously witty and clever captioning abilities, I know how to have a good time.  This is clear to me because the pictures tell me so.  It's a strange phenomenon, this new era where we can all feel like celebrities, thanks to Facebook and social networking sites.  Our news feeds are like our own personal gossip blogs, and we get to be our own PR representatives, and just like in celebrity culture - some have better reps than others.  There's the occasional scandal, when a picture gets tagged that shouldn't be tagged or posted, even.  There's the drunken nights where you "forget" to wear underwear and your junk is posted on the Internetz.  No?  Just me?  Hmm...

But really - Andy Warhol couldn't have been more accurate.  I've always been fascinated at how Facebook lets us all feel like celebrities.  Our photo albums are like the "Stars Out & About - They're Just Like Us!" section of Us Weekly.  Our status updates can venture from US News & World Report to Cosmopolitan to I Simply Don't Give a Shit Weekly.  Either way, it has raised our levels of self-importance with some interesting results.

For me, I appreciate it merely as a documentation of what I've been up to.  Of course, it is an edited documentation of what I've been up to, as in only the most acceptable parts of what I've been up to are posted.  Nonetheless, when I'm clicking back through photos I've all but forgotten, I'm sometimes (often) astounded at what I've allowed to exist in that area of cyberspace.  Which may be why the amount of pictures I'm tagged in continues to decrease, rather than increase.

I start to wonder if I should just say "fuck it."  Since it's clear society is heading towards less and less privacy, is it futile to try to protect and, more accurately, project a positive reputation online?  For a while now, I've incorporated the value of almost total transparency and openness to my life.  Very little is "off-limits" to other people.  If you ask, chances are, I'll share.  I think that secrets and lies are incredibly damaging, not only to one's self, but to others, and I try very hard to keep myself as open as possible to others - giving them the power to judge, react, and absorb, rather than deciding who and who is not capable of doing so themselves.

And as we move more and more of our lives online, or at least integrate our real lives with our virtual ones, is the same transparency valued, or even appreciated?  Or is it just plain dangerous?  Words can often be forgotten and change over time when spoken.  Yet, once you write something, it's there forever.  Which makes me really nervous to be writing a blog right now.

Except, I guess I can always change my mind.  If anything, the Internet is like a big fucking diary.  It's a huge diary that shows us where we've been, what kind of shenanigans  we've gotten into on drunken or drug-fueled nights with friends, it even shows us what we've shied away from allowing others to see, sometimes.

And I guess that's what I learned from my photo album visiting this evening - that nothing is worth being deleted, or untagged, because it's all part of me.  If I'm going to take the same open, fearless, "let people think what they will" stance in my real life, why am I so scared to take that stance in my virtual life?  Because it'll be around long after I'm dead and gone?  Well, what can I really do about that other than come back from the dead and eat your brains?

Here's to many more nights of PBR and flipping through embarrassing photo albums, online or elsewhere.  To see the friends that I've been so lucky to have, the places I've been so lucky to go, and the trouble I've been so lucky to get into is worth more than my privacy.  And if others happen to stumble across my photos and derive even half the joy I did from them, then I'll be a happy camper to help someone else have a good time.

As my pictures have reminded me, what else are we even here for?