Mind Your Intar-Business

Seriously, I am still loving this social networking crap. I like feeling closer to people with little to no effort. I like being able to see what my friends are doing. I like taking inventory of the people I know, where they are. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, now my blogtastic goodness. I always know everyone’s status. Everyone knows mine. Right now I am “So glad to get my iPhone back”.

You know my likes and dislikes and I know yours. You know that I think Arrested Development is by far the best cancelled show ever. You know I like the Mets and the Packers, and I would knife someone to steal a plate of sliders. If you didn’t know that it would be relatively easy to find that out. You would just need google and a penchant for stalking people on the internet (an epidemic in and of itself).

Is it bad that our identities can be wrapped up in 1000 words or less in an “About Me” section (and the first 10 seconds of a song)? Yes, but that’s not the worst of it.

The worst of it is that we know too dang much about each other. I am not being ignorant and anti progress. I love new things, especially when they are flashy with bright colors. However, there are tools being published all the time that are enabling us to greedily give away the the fabric that makes us unique.

 Microsoft Search Together: AHHHH, I don’t want people to know what I am searching for! It would be one thing if we were all classy and chummy like the people in the example. We were all searching for places to stay in our jet setting tour of Europe where all we need is our backpack and our dreams. No, we are not. We are searching for stupid crap. Here are some things from my google search history:

Clearly this was a banner day. I was trying to find a new haircut, a place to get it done, and some princess quotes to vandalize my brother’s xbox live profile with. I don’t want you people knowing this crap about me. Heck, I wish google didn’t know this stuff about me. I can only imagine the things boys are searching for. Somehow I would rather not to learn about your “midget thousand island dressing tarp” searches.

Ok, so that’s just google searching, I mean what do you really have to hide (you know, besides “rick roll funny video bababooey”). Check out  this bad boy. Social networking based on DNA. Because that’s an awesome idea. I really want to learn that my ex boyfriend was really my 14^th cousin on my mother’s side. I really want BoiCrzyBston08 to know that I have carry the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency gene, and that my mother passed me Tay-Sachs. I also definitely want to be stored in a semi secure database, you know, in case Americans decide to arbitrarily give away more freedoms or something (WHAT? There are lots of brown people, some wear hats.)

We have to wonder if we are unwittingly creating our own Big Brother. Not, like, 1984 Big Brother, like a cool Big Brother, that plays catch with you and lets you hang out with his older friends yet sometimes comes home from school and inexplicably beats the crap out of you leaving you to wonder “What did I do wrong?” We have to draw the line for ourselves I suppose. Watch it, as much as you want people to know what makes you YOU, how about choosing some intar-modesty sometimes. Keep the mystery alive.