What does it mean to have our lives watched by an invited guest who never forgets anything he sees? Mr. Internet comes in many guises – Count Facebook, Mssr Twitter, Professor LinkedIn, Herr Amazon – but essentially he’s doing the same thing every time: recording everything we do and noting every word we think on screen. Increasingly, his multiple personas are collapsing into one identity, which means that we are no longer a patchwork of disconnected footprints across the Web. Each of us is a collage that stands as one painting in the hallway of all the portraits of our fellow beings on the Internet. In this Digital Museum, our collage is part of a permanent exhibition.
Once it was only celebrities who had the problem of never being able to escape their past. No matter how well Jennifer Aniston does as an actress, she’ll always also be the woman that Brad Pitt left for Angelina Jolie. Now we non-celebrities have the same issue. A friend recently complained that even though she has come far in her life, Google still serves up her drunken arrest when she was a teenager whenever her name is searched. If our friend had known that one day her night of drunkenness was going to affect her job opportunities and her dating prospects, she might not have had that fifth vodka tonic. The issues she’s faced in getting her employers to trust her would make anyone turn into a teetotaler.
Once it was only celebrities who had the problem of never being able to escape their past. No matter how well Jennifer Aniston does as an actress, she’ll always also be the woman that Brad Pitt left for Angelina Jolie. Now we non-celebrities have the same issue. A friend recently complained that even though she has come far in her life, Google still serves up her drunken arrest when she was a teenager whenever her name is searched. If our friend had known that one day her night of drunkenness was going to affect her job opportunities and her dating prospects, she might not have had that fifth vodka tonic. The issues she’s faced in getting her employers to trust her would make anyone turn into a teetotaler.
