The song titled “Online” by Brad Paisley tells a short story about a geeky type of guy who seems to be obsessed with creating an alternate personality for himself, at least during the time he’s online. The music video begins when this overweight guy delivers a pizza to a house in which a rocking party is going on. He drives a piece-of-shit car, still lives with his parents, and is a Sci-Fi fanatic. Obviously, this guy is the opposite of eye candy. He is the type of person who got picked on in high school for being a band geek, and who has social troubles. In other words, his life is lacking in the “cool” department. The song then transitions to his life online. This section of his life turns out to be ironically and dramatically different than the personality he presents most of the time. In contrast, when this guy signs online, he presents himself to the rest of the internet community as a tall, mysterious hunk who seems to attract females fairly easy. I think it’s funny because it is ironic that this geeky guy secretly wants to be the type of person who typically beats him up in real life.
The age of the internet has given us the ability to demonstrate multiple personalities, as seen in this video by the geeky guy. When he is online, his confident, superior, and “cooler” personality takes over, while he continues to spend his time alone in his basement, dreaming of the perks of being a ladies’ man. Nevertheless, he still lives with his parents as a middle-aged man, holds a minimum-wage job, and is nowhere near getting a girl to date him. Real-world situations like this one have occurred zillions of times. When given access to the internet, a person could become whatever type of person they desire to be. This opens up many opportunities for criminals and masterminds. Crime, drama, and predation of young, unsuspecting victims is encountered by internet investigators every day.
So why do so many people like to create inaccurate portrayals of themselves online? I think it happens because of the convenience and ease provided by this mediated form of communication. Computer technology, particularly the internet, has given anyone with a connection the capacity to lie, cheat, or act dishonestly. I have even found myself doing it. For example, if I had a 10 – page paper due tomorrow morning, (and of course, I haven’t started it yet) I would have a few underlying instincts to phony e-mail the teacher to say that my grandma was in critical condition in the hospital. The logic in doing this would be to buy myself some more time to work on the paper. I don’t think that I would have the guts to actually call my professor to inform him/her about my bogus grandma incident, because there is something about e-mail messages that makes one-on-one communication easier to carry out. There is something that detaches us from the physical world when we are able to use mediated means. Values such as honesty, sincerity, tenderness, and trust are harder to come by these days. Postman cites in chapters 2 and 3 that part of culture is lost as society moves from tool-centered customs to technocracy until finally, a technopoly has replaced old traditions which are rendered “old technology.” New, current technology has the greatest precedence over anything else, as speed, convenience are currently the most desired things. I believe that this causes more problems than solutions in the worldly picture, as integrity lacks in many people in modern society.
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It is a shame that the internet has become a shady way for people to hide from who they really are. And it is a shame that too often people are seriously hurt both physically and emotionally by what some people portray themselves over the internet. That is why I find matchmaking websites so sketchy because no matter how you portray yourself online you never know if who you are talking to is what you are imagining. And now in this day of Myspace and things like “to catch a predator” we have to be more careful about who we come in contact with over the internet.
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