Suprablog HQ

Facebook. Myspace. Livejournal. Youtube. Last.fm. Deviatart. There are so many websites that people use to put themselves ‘out there’ for the world to see. My generation is a generation of communication and identity. And yet, my generation is also the generation of internet piracy, and also the generation that came up with anonymous web browsing and downloading. I find it ironic when I find tweets on twitter about the latest torrent downloads. Common sense about piracy is one would want to do it secretly, axxo. The internet for my generation is designed for anonymous exhibitionism. A paradox, yes. But not one hard to understand. 

Exhibitionism is the act of putting one’s self on display. Anonymity is the exact opposite-hiding one’s self. Both words bring to mind one website in particular…Myspace. 

I will use Myspace as an example. Almost every parent knows of Myspace and the dangers of having a Myspace page. Internet bullies, pedophiles and good old fashioned creeps hang out there, pretending to be someone else. And yet thousands of people flock to Myspace everyday to create personal profiles.. Surely Myspace itself is not inherently evil, but user beware of what you put out in the public eye. Employers, significant others, and others use the information found on these personal profile pages to their benefit, whatever that may be. Some people use this site to spy on the lives of family members and or friends.

Myspace was the first really prominent one out there and ended up under fire by the media quite often. Facebook has tried to squash the anonymous “fake” profiles by putting it in their terms of service to use their real name. Some of my friends still don’t. These friends still mind having their name googled apparently.

On the flip side of things, we have private browsing efforts and private downloading programs and ip address ‘veils’ and proxy servers all to mask who we are when on the internet. What would happen if you got caught looking at something nsfw or downloading free music illegally? Your isp calls the athorities for the latter and you get fired for the former. So, naturally, people want to do risque things online and not get caught, so they do their darndest to hide who they really are. 

And then, there are some that respect the fact there is no privacy and that it’s all relative in the long run. If you don’t mind everyone knowing your business use the internet. Once you put it out there it’s never going to be private again.