There are a few reasons for this I suppose. Firstly, I don't really like to get to know people well. Meaning, I am a pretty social person, I talk a lot, and I ask even more questions. But putting the effort into forming a friendship? That I do not do, and while I think I do know quite a number of people, I do not know them well. Secondly, I have always liked writing. That is not true. I hated writing fictional compositions and such in school, but I have always kept a journal. In fact, in primary school I used to keep a journal, Harriet the Spy style, and would get incredibly pissed if anyone so much as touched it. As a result, I'm more comfortable expressing myself in words. Now, that's true.
So you can imagine me hopping onto the bandwagon when the blogging craze came about 7-8 years back. And also, you can imagine me staying on the now rickety wagon all by my lonesome self, despite everyone moving on to new age microblogging fads such as Twitter and Facebook. To be fair, I do use Twitter and Tumblr, but I maintain this blog still, despite the allure and convenience of using other platforms to express myself.
But the truth is, when I started blogging, I never thought I'd still be doing so 7 years into the future! Yet here I am, a year from graduation, still trying to update this space regularly. Now, recently, I have started to wonder what will happen to this blog when I graduate next year. It is all very well for me to blog as a student, about anything under the sun as I deem fit, because I am not accountable to anyone except my parents. But when I graduate and start working, I'm worried that some snarky comment in a past entry might adversely affect my career next time.
The thing that got my mind stuck on this issue is the upcoming Singapore elections. A young candidate of 27 years of age with plenty of questionable photos on Facebook (I think?) has sparked some furious objection to her running for the elections. While I'm most probably not going to go into politics, I can't help but think... What would happen if someone gets offended by a past blogpost and calls me out on it? I'm now super worried that it'll affect my life somehow in the future.
And the thing is, the Internet is cruel. It's relentless, and unforgiving. It doesn't care about your feelings, it doesn't care about the truth. That is why seemingly harmless comments can be taken wildly out of proportion and blown up to epic levels. The thing is, I'm not worried about my recent entries. As I grew older, I think the content of my posts have somewhat improved in standard. But what if someone finds my lack of proper grammar and spelling during my sec3 years insulting?! Do people really care about what type of a person I was 7 years back?
I guess the solution is simple: Delete the blog, delete the older entries, start a new blog, or lock the blog. Same applies to my Twitter account. In fact, I think the problem will be even worse on Twitter! Not only do I have more than 3 times the amount of tweets compared to blogposts, but my tweets are often used for me to let off steam and vent! Add in misintepretation and I'll be in a hot mess.
Let's take this recent tweet for example: "Managed to get the last bus home, but not cabbing = have to walk in! :(".
Okay there are so many possible things that can be interpreted out of the tweet. The few I can think of are:
- I have to take the last bus. This means I go out late and I'm such a havoc person! Later next time she's late for work because she went out until so late the night before how?!!
- "But" not cabbing. This means I always cab! What a waste of money!
- Have to walk in :(. Clearly, I am unhappy about walking in. This means that I'm a spoilt person who likes to waste money cabbing everywhere and am too lazy to walk short distances.
Or we could look at my twant (tweet rant? LOL.) about Jacob Lusk not going home on American Idol. That implies I am racist?! Or me saying I love Kristen Bell. DOES THAT IMPLY THAT I'M A LESBIAN? And does my typing the previous sentence in all caps imply that I am against homosexuality?! Oh god this entry was a bad idea. My mind is now swarming with the possible interpretations of each and everything I do online, all open to the scrutiny of the public.
As I was saying before freaking out (which implies I'm easily stressed): I should just privatize my Twitter account and blog, set up a new, more professional account for each and keep the possible fodder material to myself and my close friends. It's going to take some time I guess. To be honest, I haven't come to a full decision yet - I still have a year after all. But I am seriously contemplating wiping any potential embarrassing material off the face of the Internet. Or at least, hide it such that it'll take a bona fide genius to hack through everything.
So... Ideas? Suggestions? I think I'm currently leaning towards deleting/drafting some old posts from this blog, and making sure the more professional sounding ones stay. As professional sounding as a casual blogger like myself can get anyway. Doing this will also allow me to reorganise all my posts and give them appropriate tags.
Regarding my Twitter account, I'll probably privatize it, but set up a new one for commentary sakes. It'll also be the one where I announce all new blog posts, probably. In addition, I can talk freely about movies, TV shows, games, books etc without worrying that my friends will find me too bothersome.
A year left, that's all I have before I ruin my life for good by forgetting to delete some embarrassing sentence I might have made wayyyyyy back. Sighs. The Internet giveth and the Internet taketh. Don't let it ruin your life.
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