Posts Tagged "Analysis"
My Digital Identity
Have you ever tried Googling yourself?
If not, I recommend it.
You need to be aware of what people who search for you will find, good and bad.
I recently realized that, even with what I consider to be a fairly unique name, I wasn’t one of the first things that comes up when Googled. It turns out that I share my name with a Christian visual artist, a professional golfer, a prominent American General, and when you add my city into the search, a local rapist.
Taking control of my digital identity became important to me. First of all, I wanted to be found where people are looking for me. I have public access profiles on facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo (no idea if this has any value), foursquare, brightkite, and now this blog site.
I didn’t expect to pop up in search results right away, but it turns out that Google is pretty quick at picking up the blog if you use the right search terms. Surprisingly, I get Google, Yahoo and Bing referred traffic every day.
So, I know that I want to be able to be found with the right kind of information when someone is looking for me. And I know that in order to be found I need to live at least part of my life in a publicly accessible way. Which brings me to a new challenge. What are the repercussions of living a more public life?
Let’s muddle through some of the pros and cons:
On the pros side, I am starting to show up when people look for me. You still need to dig a bit, and you need to choose the right search terms, but I am now findable. I would love to overtake one of my namesakes, but that will take some time given the head start they’ve had.
Another pro is that it’s an easy way for people to get to know me, or get to know me better. Despite being able to see the daily analytics of the types of people reading my blog, I’m always surprised to hear from someone in real life about what they thought of one of my posts.
On the cons side, I need to assume that absolutely anybody who can be offended by anything that I have to say will read my blog. I also have to assume that anything that can be interpreted offensive in any way, will be interpreted that way.
I’ve also learned that my time commitments to other things can come into question. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had someone challenge me as to how much time I spend writing as opposed to other obligations. The fact is that I could easily be spending 10x as much time as I do writing on home renovations, playing games, working after hours, exercising, riding my motorcycle, or just hanging out with friends and nobody would have any idea whatsoever.
With the exception of my wife, nobody could possibly be around me enough to know how I spend my personal time, nor should anyone justifiably have an opinion on the matter. The problem with having a public blog is that it seems like an easy target because it’s available. The irony to me is that I actually do most of my writing either in bed or in moments when I am stuck somewhere waiting for something, and usually on either the iPhone or iPad using the WordPress App. I always have 5-10 entries in the can at various states of readiness and I always schedule my new posts to publish at 12:30pm on the release date. I often forget that a new post is up because my day is busy.
I can see a future where everyone has to have some sort of digital identity. You can get away without being completely digital today, but I don’t think that is going last for much longer. When someone is looking for something, they Google it. Why not go one step further and make all people Googlable?
Eventually, there will be more of us who want to access information about people digitally than people who fear what that digital access means. I’ve said before that I am willing to share certain information with corporations and governments so that I can have a more relevantly personalized digital experience.
I am also willing to sacrifice some private thoughts and opinions in order to be found in a meaningful way when something I have to say strikes a chord with another person, whether I know them or not, and whether they agree with me or not.
N
Read MoreFamily Guy #150
I just re-watched the 150th episode of Family Guy and really want to break down this episode a little bit to see if anyone else is left with the same questions and feelings that I am.
Be advised that the rest of this post may be a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the episode.
The Family Guy team went with a very different structure for the show this week. First of all, it was an hour from beginning to end, including about 40 minutes of “story” and the remaining 20 minutes being a gamut of musical numbers that may or may not have appeared in previous episodes.
The “story” segment stands out as the real episode with the rest feeling like either filler or a purposeful series of scenes meant to uplift our spirits after the somewhat dark journey of the “story”.
The technique to telling this story was a very different approach for Family Guy. So much so that it felt almost like there was a guest director. There were almost no sounds outside of the voices of the characters. (Very little sound effects and no soundtrack whatsoever after the opening credits) When compared to the usual play-ins from commercials, there was a very different overall tone to this episode.
The story begins with Brian and Stewie getting trapped in a timed bank vault over night when visiting Brian’s safety deposit box at the end of the business day.
After becoming locked in, Stewie proceeds to soil his diaper and tries to convince Brian that the only way he can make it through the night is if Brian eats his feces to clean out the diaper as well as cleaning Stewie with his tongue. The way that the writers let this play out was brilliant. You knew immediately that it was going to be disgusting, but they built up suspense so perfectly that that you were relieved when they didn’t show you the actual act when it happened.
Throughout the episode it was hard not to hear the words and tones of the characters and not imagine the pair as a married couple where Brian was the husband and Stewie was the wife (even the example of Stewie buying a $3,000 sweater and Brian calling him a an idiotic and pretentious moron as you would imagine a husband who is displeased with his wife’s superfluous shopping might have in the 50s). You see them as two people who know each other very well and are hashing out some ongoing arguments.
Sure, the content of the arguments was, at times, farcical but the progression and resulting hurt feelings was like watching a couple work through marital issues stemming from individuals treating each other poorly after being together for a long time.
It’s only after Brian hurts Stewie’s feelings that he agrees to eat the soil out of the diaper, and once he eats a little poop … Everything is ok for a while. Eventually, we find out that Stewie didn’t really even need Brian to eat it, but rather was manipulating Brian for his own amusement.
Later, Brian gives Stewie some scotch, until Stewie feels like dancing in front of him, right after saying that he doesn’t want to drink too much because “I don’t want to get buzzed. People take advantage of kids who get buzzed *playfully* so don’t you try anything.” Brian sits back and tells him how good he is and how he’s really impressed. The whole scene seems like watching a pedophile seducing a little boy with the use of alcohol.
Once they are completely drunk, it’s like watching a couple of guys who are drunk telling each other how much they like each other before doing something stupid that drunk guys might do resulting in Stewie getting hurt physically.
The next part involved an emotional revelation by Brian that among his possessions inside the safety deposit box is a gun that he keeps, just in case he decides he needs it to kill himself with at some point. When pressed for a reason that he would commit suicide, he revealed that he doesn’t live with purpose and that maybe his life has no meaning. ”Is there ever a time when we’re truly in the present moment, and not looking to the past of the future.” The scotch that he had shared with Stewie was intended to be his last drink before pulling the trigger.
Of course, they wrap it all up at the end by declaring their love for each other and Stewie tells Brian that his presence give’s Stewie’s life purpose before they fall asleep in each other’s arms. The segment ends with the bank vault opening and Brian carrying Stewie out of the vault in silence.
Maybe I’m over-thinking the whole thing … maybe it’s a cartoon, intended to be entertaining and that’s it, but I don’t think so. I think that Seth MacFarlane and the Family Guy team are tricking people into realizing a little about themselves. By injecting a little of the common experiences people have had, good and bad, and in a variety of different ways, the show has much more to say than it really seems.
A man who has spoken down to the woman he supposedly loves may have noticed a similarity in Stewie’s reaction to that of his wife. A manipulative person may see that the way they treat their partner isn’t that nice. Someone who has ever thought about committing suicide may hear Brian’s reasoning and Stewie’s reassurance and be reassured themselves. And a pedophile may have noticed that society is watching, deterring them from acting on whatever urges they might have for fear of getting caught.
I know that Macfarlane has said he likes to hold a mirror up to society in the past, but never has it been more obvious for me than this past Sunday.
N
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