I find that people are often skittish about sharing much of themselves on the Internet. Although I don’t feel that way, it isn’t an insane attitude. Being public on the Internet has downsides. Anyone who applies for a job or goes on a date these days is getting Internet searched. If anything you don’t like gets posted, Google and the Internet Archive will remember it forever.
I think my best piece of internet detritus relating to me is a forum thread entitled “Is Tom LaPille a dick?” That came from my previous Internet life when I wrote strategy articles about Magic: The Gathering. Google seems to think it’s very relevant, so it hangs out near the bottom of page one of my search results.
All in all, that’s pretty mild. Lots of Internet famous people have vociferous and public haters, seemingly in proportion to how successful they are. Perhaps more people will post obnoxious things about me soon.
I find that most writing about Internet privacy concerns itself with the potential downsides that come from being public. What happens when you start looking for upside instead?
I have always thought a lot about the things that I am posting about on this blog. I have not always been in contact with others who do the same. Now that I’m being public about it, though, some amazing things are happening. I’m discovering that I have several friends who think similarly to me, and those people are starting to talk to me more often about topics that interest me. Other friends that these topics made uncomfortable are talking to me less often. I’m having conversations on Twitter with people I’ve never met in person that are relevant to my interests. By being open about what I’m thinking about, I’ve attracted lots of experiences that I would not have known existed.
This is all pretty mild right now. What would happen if I started a blog about Japanese swordsmanship? About SCA fighting? Would writing a meta-blog about the process of making this blog attract more blogger friends?
I also wonder about the scope of the possible opportunities I will have as my readership grows. Three years from now, might I be able to couch-surf across the country, spending a few days at a time with new people who are interested in thoughtful personal growth.
Let’s take this to the extreme as a thought experiment. What would happen if you publicly broadcasted every detail of your every day on the Internet? There are probably parts of your life that you’re not thrilled about sharing for the world to see, but imagine if you did anyway. No doubt some people would not like what they saw, but there would be some who did. Everyone would be able to see a full picture of you before interacting with you at all, and that means that the success rate of new social interactions would probably be quite high. This would take an enormous amount of courage, but the potential gains may be sizable.
All in all, I’ve shared more of myself on the Internet in the past two weeks than I have in a few years. I’m quite pleased with the results, and I don’t plan on slowing down. I don’t expect to ever implement the bare-it-all plan, but who knows?
I have operated under the assumption that the universe responds to my thoughts by manifesting more of what I am thinking about. This effect seems to be an order of magnitude more powerful when I do the thinking in public. I look forward to seeing where this goes.
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