I came across a hilarious video today that I shared on Facebook and Twitter. In it, a young man recounted a field trip from his youth, growing up in the South, that was incredibly racist in nature. Racism isn’t funny, but his recounting of the experience had great comedic timing. The video was shot by a friend at a party, apparently after the narrator had had a couple of drinks. The repercussions of sharing the video never occurred to me, or anyone else, I suspect.
A friend commented on the Facebook post later this evening to say that the video had been removed, and he posted a video of the young man explaining why he’d asked to have the video removed. His reasoning was hard to argue with. Basically, he was afraid having something like that on the internet would hurt his prospects of a career in the future.
It’s hard to argue with that kind of reasoning. Truth is, employees, like editors with slush, are so inundated with resumes these days, they’re probably looking for any reason they can to pass on potential employees. Whether that’s right or wrong is irrelevant—they’re doing it, they will continue to do it, and arguing about it won’t stop it, so long as there is a surplus of labor and a shortage of jobs to be done. (Even though I don’t really believe that’s necessarily the case across the board).
The internet doesn’t forget anything. Sites like the Wayback Machine make sure of it. Youthful indiscretions, foolish behavior, or moments of weakness are practically etched in stone today, and half the time, we’re doing the etching ourselves (although in this case, the young man’s friends recorded the video and uploaded it). I can just imagine the first political races where the candidates have a life of internet history behind them. They candidates are either going to have had lived boring lives or we’re going to have to become more tolerant of faults in our potential leaders. I suspect the impact it’ll have, if we don’t become more tolerant, will be a very negative one. We often say that last people we want in office are the people who want the jobs. This will just exacerbate that. We’ll end up with people who knew they wanted power from a very early age and planned for it. That’s a frightening thought to me on some levels.
The video showed all the signs of being a breakout viral hit, and the young man could have tried to ride that to some measure of fame like so many have done before. It takes a principled person, I think, to pass up the chance of sudden fame to stick to your goals. He’s tried to “put the genie back in the bottle,” but people have already reposted the video against his wishes. If his career plans don’t work out though, he’ll definitely have a future in stand up. I imagine some comedians would argue that’s damning him with faint praise, as far a real income prospects go…
I wish that young man the best of luck, regardless.
Sometimes, I’m just overwhelmed with how different this world is than the one I expected to be living in. It’s marvelous and troubling, frightening and exhilarating all at once. We live in the bloody future, in very strange days.
Tags: fame, internet, reputation, video, viral
I don’t think most people have really thought about the long term effects of what they do on the Net today. If you have a generic name, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to hide in the crowd.
But as far as I know my name is unique, so on the Net, I just assume that anything I’m doing could be seen by Mom, my kids, or any future employers. Just like if you are in a populated area, you have to assume you are on camera at all times and conduct yourself accordingly.
The semi-private networks like Facebook really lull people into a false sense of security. I have intentionally left my Facebook profile and other accounts wide open so I don’t make the mistake of thinking I have any real privacy.
You make a good point about politicians with a web history. Just look at the last supreme court pick, she was a blank slate with very few opinions that could pinned on her and by all accounts that was an intentional career strategy. That’s only going to get worse in the future.
The Net could also be a solution to some of these political problems though. It’ll never happen, but what I’d really like to see is for all politicians to be fully transparent and incorruptible. They should be wired and streamed to Net continuously, barring anything that is actually top secret. Why not submit them to the Orwellian nightmare they are so quick to push on the rest of us and force them to be honest?
I think you have an idea for a story right there, sir.
Good points. I’ve clung to some measure of privacy on Facebook but I think you’re right that it’s a mistake in my thinking.
Uh oh, I might have to scratch that itch. Putting a politician in a fishbowl, even a fictional one, sounds like great fun!
I did almost choose to keep it private since other people could be posting things on my wall, but I just didn’t trust myself to behave without keeping it public.