Not so long ago a friend of mine was cheering that his/her young adult’s public accident’s posts already switched to the page Nr.2 in the Google search. And it just took few years. A success “?” !
Another person from an older generation complained that almost the only post that his/her international colleagues can find about him/her is a rather negative news story about how he/she got a job. A failure!
And I have another friend whom I don’t even try to Google because I know I will not find him/her there. A winner (according to his/her aims).
I wish I could choose or shape a moderate average version of my global exposure — to show my best work, some of my youth footprints, some activism and hobbies and much less of that which does not make any sense. However, if I had to choose from the categories above I’d rather fit to the upper one — celebrating “successes” when fresher posts appear ahead to the others.
Before posting this new entry in the w w w I searched myself to see how it looks today. Surprisingly the search made me smile a bit – someone/some aggregator had posted an old photo of me (please don’t comment about it) and gave me an extra year of life (or a month if we check today’s calendar)!
However normally I tend to follow these rules:
- Don’t post unless I really want to and/or have something meaningful to say.
- Don’t register to any new platforms with my real name just to check out how it works and without a real intention to use it.
- When I leave a comment, I don’t use my full name or register with social networks — unless it will be meaningful for me for many years.
- Be wise every time or take it easy.
Today I am taking it easy.
Revised by: Miguel Otárola
Control can certainly be elusive when it comes to shaping our online selves. I feel almost all of my internet interactions are a balancing act on the trapeze of personal promotion versus privacy. I have nothing to hid and want my professional work and social media accounts to be prominent but there’s also a lot of family stuff online some random searcher in Nigeria *doesn’t* need to know.
One watershed moment for me was when you pointed out the many definitions of online “success”. For a celebrity or actor, not being at the top of every related google search can hurt their brand, but for my grandma, it’s probably better she operates in near-anonymity. It reminds me I haven’t really identified what online “success” means for me.