I think everyone in the whole wide world must have a Facebook now. Please do not mention MySpace anymore because it is dead and buried and no one is on it anymore. Now I am not crazy addicted to my Facebook account (though I will admit I was when I first made it) but I do go on often to see new posts and pictures that my friends publish to their walls. And most of the times I like to publish pictures from fun nights with my friends too. This is where things could get ugly. Some of the pictures that I post now without thinking could be very embarrassing in ten, fifteen, or twenty years. Now please do not think that I am out parting every night and dancing half naked on poles. This is far from the truth but there are nights where I will somehow magically get the day off from work and happen to want to go out and live a little. I just turned twenty-one for goodness sakes and I want to enjoy my youth! But these pictures that I post could come back to haunt me in later years.
I have pictures that I or one of my friends has posted where I am a little tipsy and acting crazy, or I am in the process of taking shots. This could eventually embarrass me when I am out of school and teaching. No one would want their child’s kindergarten teacher to be a party girl and to have pictures online of her taking Jell-O shots! This just could ruin my chances of getting a teaching position when I am out of school. And there is no way that I would allow a picture from my younger years lose me a job. But this is happening all the time now, and companies routinely have checks of their applicant’s online history. They check their Facebook, Twitter, and any other online social networking site they can find them on. And if they find anything that they do not like then there goes your chance of a job.
I think as we grow older we look back at our younger years and laugh at all the things and mistakes we made. But in today’s society those memories are usually online and we will have to deal with them resurfacing in our later years. People will be able to see all the posts that I have written in my whole history of online activity. People could see my old MySpace account that I could never quite figure out how to delete. And those pictures that I have on that MySpace account are from my high school years and they embarrass me now. So I cannot even imagine how red I will get if someone would show them to me in another twenty years. In our society today, with all these online social sites, we have to be so careful with the things we post and publish because they can always come back to bite us in the ass.
I have certain pictures online from my past that may not exactly describe the kind of person that I am today, or the kind of person that people that I have met since then think I am. I am not embarrassed by them, but people that don’t know me that way have been surprised to see them. These pictures are from twenty or more years ago, when I was involved with gangs and that mentality, and show me throwing up gang signs along side my homies doing the same thing. I have grown over the years, but those pictures do reflect the experiences that I had at that time. For better or for worse, these experiences helped to shape me into the person I am today. In addition to pictures, the same goes for tattoos that I got years ago that wouldn’t get today. I’m not embarrassed about the experiences and will openly discuss them, but I do regret having certain tattoos because they sometimes paint a different picture of me today. I have gang tattoos, girls names (one which was covered up), and an image of weed leaves that is tatted on my lower forearm. This is the one that I regret the most, as I have had employment as well as legal issues because of it. Oh well, life goes on…
ReplyDeleteMonica, I can’t tell you how much I empathize with you. I myself want to be a kindergarten teacher, too.I’m not doing shots (I’m not a shots kind of girl), but if you’ve overheard me rambling on and on in Science class about my love for Rocky Horror Picture Show then you can imagine that there are pictures on my Facebook of my friends and I with some fairly interesting people. We’re a crazy bunch and it’s those moments when I’m thinking, “What the hell did I get myself into?” when my friends will snap a photo and then twenty-four hours later, pictures will be up on Facebook. It’s so interesting how moments of having a good time aren’t always good things to be posted. Because, you’re absolutely right. Future employers look everywhere to make sure they’re making the right choice with hiring you and pictures on Facebook have the potential of having you miss the metaphorical mark.
ReplyDeleteI find myself torn when it comes to this problem, you know? Because, I feel like you should be able to do what you want when you’re not working, as long as you’re not harming others or disrespecting the workplace directly. If there’s something floating around out there that is completely inappropriate, I think that there’s definite reasons for not hiring a person, but yeah. Maybe I’m not making sense. All that matters is that I really liked your blog and your thoughts. See you on Monday!
Facebook can be a fun place to share pictures and comments but like you said they might come back to haunt us. The internet can be a dangerous place, anyone can go online and Google or search for you.
ReplyDeleteI remember a recent camping trip I was on with a group of friends. We were all hangout by our trailers drinking and eating just enjoying the day. After a few drinks we started to act silly and the cameras came out. I have many friends that like to post every single thing they do in their lives. Of course the pictures that were taken that day were up on Facebook within minutes of them being taken.
With cameras on cell phones and with the Facebook app it is easy to quickly upload pictures. I remember my boyfriend was standing next to me and he made a comment, he said “oh great I hope those pictures don’t get on Facebook” and I turned to him and said they already are. He gave me “the look” ( a look he gives me when he is not happy), I shrugged my shoulder and said I can’t help it I didn’t post them. The girls were busy uploading each photo they took.
In your blog you said, “I have pictures that I or one of my friends has posted where I am a little tipsy and acting crazy, or I am in the process of taking shots. This could eventually embarrass me when I am out of school and teaching.”
ReplyDeleteThis is quite possibly one of the scariest parts of the situation. The fact that your friends may be the one’s posting the photographs. Personally, I take this as a challenge to be as professional as possible at all times. You can’t control what your friends will post and the reality is, if you allowed yourself to be photographed by them, you really can’t blame anybody but yourself.
On the other side of that, we have a responsibility to give our friends the respect of not posting photographs that may later embarrass them. It only takes one inappropriate photograph to ruin your reputation. People are, by nature, judgmental beings. One photograph may be all they need to make all kinds of assumptions about you as a person. We like to add details that we have made up to our own stories.
I choose to look at it as a challenge to monitor my own behavior rather than a threat.
You are so right…One day you will have teen and they will see these photos. Since teens use all your faults, downfalls or failures in order to further their own purpose, expecially if that purpose goes against what you want Like you said, not that you are pole dancing. I think that is something everyone in this generation is going to face.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t even think about a potential job! Ouch! You are right…If I saw my sons teach had a facebook with drinking going on I would have a hard time. I don’t know if I would if they were during her college years though. I work at a school now and you would not get a job there…that is so sad in a way that you can no longer have a personal life and a work life without getting them so intertwined!
I guess I never really thought about these things because my facebook is quite sad. My profile pic is still of goofy from when they had that promotion for something for kids. I can’t even remember it was so long ago. I wish I was better at keeping up with it.
You have made some really good points and I think that you are so right! But I think that it good and bad that you can acknowledge the possible reprocusions to this pulic display of behavior and still be who you are. Good for you…maybe, now that I think about you are exactly the kind of person I want my children with…real.
Hello, on my blog you asked what ““lol noob l2cook grandma. olive oil > vegetable oil :P” meant. Another way to put that, would be , “Hey grandma you’re cooking sucks, olive oil is healthier than vegetable oil lol”.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I agree with your post this week; the stuff you post on your facebook could potentially be used against you sometime in the future. This is normal, everyone has a facebook and people tend to post pictures of what they’re currently into. And the stuff you’re doing now in the present shouldn’t be something you regret or be fearful of. Well basically, in my opinion, I don’t think we should be living our lives in fear of what other people might think of us. But like you mentioned, the content you post on your Facebook could potentially be pulled up in the future for job interviews and this could affect you from getting a job -- that’s understandable to be fearful of.
As we grow older, we change and that’s just something we need to accept; stuff from the past could be embarrassing depending on how you look at the situation. We do need to be mindful of our openness when posting anything on our social networking sites.