Like many people I know, I spend a lot of time on Facebook and to a much lesser extent now, Myspace.  A couple of nights back I decided that my main profile picture was starting to feel a bit stale so I went through the handily linked list of pictures I am tagged in (758 and growing) to find a new virtual head shot.  As I mostly failed at this task- skipping over many ridiculous and unflattering pictures before finally settling on a mildly ridiculous picture where at least I'm dressed in snazzy wear- old thoughts from the back of my mind returned about the nature of an individual's constructed online persona and how it correlates and conflicts with the real person's persona.

As I've said before, it's astounding how much things have changed in just the past decade with the advent of the internet and the ubiquity of the cell phone.  It's just bizarre to look back at the evolution of how people have used these tools and how they're now converging.  I remember early on even way back when my friends and I used ICQ then jumped mostly to AOL Instant Messenger, people's "profiles" would start to include more and more information, going way beyond a simple about me.  When I hit college in 2001, AIM was somewhat of a de facto social network of its own, to the point where people were checking away messages and profiles much more often than they were actually chatting with each other.  In hindsight, it's hard to imagine why social networking sites didn't explode sooner.

When Facebook expanded to Purdue's campus somewhere around 2004/5, I joined as a curiosity.  It was mostly worthless then, just a picture and about me sort of thing, with ways to find common classmates.  I already had AIM, why would I want to browse the all aim profile website?  But over time something started to happen- as the network grew so did the value of the site.  Imagine that.  Then myspace came on the scene and though I was resistant to it as the home of idiot pre teens and idiots in general, the network of friends there and the new ways they were interacting with each other became increasingly interesting.  And as the interactions increased, so did the intricacy in crafting the information that was the public face of the user to the network.

Cut forward to now- with the various networks copying and expanding features, even adding chat as a secondary feature (welcome back to AIM) they have become more than a way of looking people up, they're becoming integral in how people interact and communicate.  I know many people who would first send a message or post on a wall before sending an email, even if they have the address handy.  Event organizing and photo sharing have all been co-opted, because when you combine information with easy access to your network of friends and family it becomes even more valuable.

But, do we act the same as our online counterpart as we do in the flesh?  How much is filtered out?  The unflattering pictures, the bad moments, etc.  How many of us are consciously or unconsciously limiting information in order to be seen differently than as we are?  To be fair, this happens 'in real life' all the time.  It takes time to get to know the real person rather than their representative, as Chris Rock will tell you.  However, the amount of tools currently at our disposal to put our best face forward is greater than ever.  In fact, not using them can have a serious detrimental effect.

With companies and colleges and potential dates searching social networks and the internet in general for information on people, allowing the real person to have too much visibility can be hazardous.  Personally I tend to let the 'real me' out on purpose more than most, at least in my opinion.  But you can bet I use those privacy controls to their fullest extent and with all their granularity.  I am happy I'm not searching for a new job or school just because of the amount of effort required to make sure I look as good as possible is beyond exasperating.  As for dates, the sooner they find out about the real me, the better.

Since I enjoy pouring my thoughts and misadventures out onto the internet at large, I've even created this whole so and so pseudonym as a mild bit of security through obscurity.  But as any security student knows, this is woefully inadequate.  A google search for my name has my twitter profile on the first page of results.  But not before a couple of results for someone who shares my name, the openly gay musical composer.  Compose on, brother.

Either way, I hope as connectivity continues to expand and more of our communication is done electronically instead of face to face, we collectively find a way to maintain our sense of who we are really amidst the snapshots we leave facing the window.  The more we have to dig to find the person the more time we waste.

Can you see the real me doctor?

I have several ideas for new posts coming up, but like the infamous (at least to me and possibly two or three other people) grape Mr. Misty review, I'll have to sit down and write them soon or they'll vanish forever.  Since I don't want to cannibalize the content of said posts here, I'll leave you with an idea I've been working on recently:

A line of designer purses, priced more modestly than Coach, named Dauber.

This was written on October 27th, 2003 on livejournal, and the 21 year old Craig was still very much in a Jason Lee in mallrats phase of his life involving a lot of rants and general malaise directed mostly towards the opposite sex. He also was not very self confident around the ladies. The 'wahh, nobody wants a nice guy' stuff is especially fun. Just soak in the angst
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Warning: if you are the average girl, this will probably piss you off.

Everyday, be it through general observation in the outside world or cruising the away messages and profiles on my buddy list, somebody says, does, or writes something that just kind of pisses me off. These somebodies usually have no Y chromosome. Now don't get me wrong, There are way more than enough idiot guys around, but for some reason the things I'm about to talk about are more of an irritant. Fire and ice, baby.

First on the list- no matter who your boyfriend is and how many nice things he does for you, odds are he is not the best boyfriend in the world. In order to fit that criteria the guy would have to be able to deliver amazing sex, take you shopping, buy you roses and dinner, appreciate your feelings, and ride a white horse, all at the same time. If you can document your boyfriend doing this, then I'll give you that one. I also request the videotape, as it would be highly amusing.

Next- girls are not apples on a tree. They're not bananas or pears either (but maybe melons AM I RITE? ROTFLOLOLOOLLL). "Boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they're afraid of falling and getting hurt." What? Speaking for myself, if all the best girls were at the top of the tree, I sure as hell would own a lot more climbing equipment. But, it's not that simple. I just think this is a ridiculous metaphor. Relationships and why they do and don't happen are quite a bit more complicated than you don't have a boyfriend because the guy who's supposed to be with you is having saucy apple sex with all the rotten fruit sluts on the bottom branch. Odds are you don't want the idiots chasing after every fruit, vegetable, and legume that gives it up easy anyway. On second thought, maybe this is true and those patient good climbers do eventually come for the best women. Perhaps this is why I see all the best women with stupid apes :p.

Third- I realize many of you ladies fantasize about being a princess. Waiting for that prince on the white horse to come and sweep you off your feet and live happily ever after. Ain't gonna happen. True love does happen, and I've seen it. That doesn't mean there's such thing as a problem free relationship. You may meet some person that complements you so completely that you can live the rest of your life with them. But odds are this person will not be the guy that comes on to you in the bar and feeds you exactly what you want to hear so he can get you to come back home with him. You want to know why you keep getting mixed up with assholes? Because flattery gets them everywhere and they know it. I'm becoming bitter and disenchanted enough to subscribe to the "not many girls want a nice guy" school of thought anyway. In real life, a true happy to the end relationship is a two way street. A guy should work hard to earn the affection of a lady, but it's like the transcontinental railroad- you need people working from both directions. I mean come on, that loveable ragtag bunch of railroad workers from California can't get the job done by themselves!

Since I have chosen to make a career out of a specific aspect of technology (software development), I have been neglecting the arts a bit. Not completely, of course. I wrote the occasional myspace blog, I go through the occasional reading binge, I play and listen to an awful lot of music, etc. But, the goal of this blog is to step outside of the walled gardens of social networking and write about things that I find interesting just for fun, mostly falling under the umbrella of the technology and / or the arts.

I've always wanted to be a renaissance man before I knew what the term meant or before I had any idea who Danny DeVito was. This new blog is an attempt to brighten up my slightly tarnished writing skills indirectly, as well as maybe providing something interesting to somebody somewhere, but I'm aware of the odds of that. I'm hoping to level out my personal see-saw a bit even if not a single person subscribes to my feed.

Anyhow, I'll probably be writing about my occasional tech projects, my band, books I'm reading, movies, television, a little bit of sports, the occasional excitement and intrigue associated with the glamorous life of a software engineer, an odd bit of amateur punditry, and who knows what else. I'll try to keep the echo chamber crap to a minimum, but I'm mostly a doofus so who knows.