I was sent this earlier today:

Edit: By the way, the webcomic for this is hilarious, and all geeks should get on this asap!

As a beginning, I would say that I am too often prompted to make posts by reading Penelope’s Brazen Careerist blog.  And rarely because we are discussing careers.

She posted, on Monday, about the Emily Gould article on the NYTimes.  I’d already started reading this post last week because it was left up on the Mac at home (which was probably a fortuitous accident rather than a planned jab).  At that time I’d only ready one page before I had to start preparing for my weekend activities.  Today, I read the whole thing.  My review?  Eerily accurate in the description of online addiction to immediate gratification and communication.  Otherwise?  Sort of a prodigal daughter story mixed with your average rise and fall of a job experience.  Just because it was in the fast-paced and exciting “blogging” career-field doesn’t make it any different than any other job experience.

However, beyond Penelope’s response of a jealous-tinged, “No one is special.  Get over yourself,” it makes me begin to think about online exposure and what propels us to be so open.

It’s an interesting topic.  Privacy is something we fought to protect, and has been included in the interpretation of the 9th Amendment to the Constitution.  How often do we receive privacy notices in the mail, or agree to them online?  Regulation S-P has pushed privacy into the forefront of the investment world.  We can opt out of mailings, opt out of getting phone calls.  How many times do we assert that other people can’t tell us how to live our own lives?  All on the basis of privacy.

So, how do we explain our nation’s growing love of invading privacy and displaying our lives openly?

The Emily Gould article discusses the online blogging phenomenon in a way that  I think many online bloggers might find a little too close to home.  It seems that online, we feel much more safe to share our personal information than if perhaps someone called us and asked.  If someone were to open our diary and tell everyone what we feel, we might freak out.  But we in essence do the same in our blogging world.  Some of us use alternate names for the people involved, but others do not.  And sometimes they don’t have to - as in the Emily article, or with Penelope, we all know who the individual is.  What prompts us to share so much of ourselves online?

Add in myspace, Twitter, and other online apps that allow you to keep in touch all the time, across the globe, and it becomes dizzying how much our culture is moving towards compromising our own privacy.  I admit - I easily put information out there about my life, at times perhaps more than I should. 

Let’s go further - what about Reality T.V.?  No longer happy with the typical soap opera fiction, we have show after show that delves into the lives of real people and their dramas.  The axiom to avoid airing your dirty laundry has changed to promote putting it all out there - even the stained underwear.  And it isn’t just an American phenomenon - Europe loves Reality TV. Reality tv is the definition of uncomfortable levels of sharing - it really exemplifies the whole “watching a train wreck” phenomenon. 

But at the same time, it also evokes a sense of salvation and after-school specials.  Lessons that used to be learned after 30 minutes of family sitcoms like the Cosby Show are now lived out, in painstaking episode after episode, inviting us to learn about “raw and uncut” human nature.  Either you are unsave-able (remember Omarosa of The Apprentice?) or a stray sheep who just needs a little direction to get back to the flock (just about anyone on The Biggest Loser, The Nanny, etc.)  Each person’s success or downfall is watched, discussed, and analyzed.  What did they do wrong?  Who deserves to win?  What are good traits to have, and what are failures?

Even within fictional tv shows such as Sex and the City, we are getting more and more personal in our displays and discussion.  The topics go deeper into the human condition.  Six Feet Under gets pretty vivid into our relationship with life- and with death.

Penelope’s blog is about where work and personal life intersect - and perhaps that’s a telling statement in of itself.  In our workplaces, we hear more and more about work-life balance (subject of future post) which makes us feel as if the two are interconnected more than they used to be.  Dealing with individual’s feelings about their job, their goals and personal issues have become a part of what your manager has to think of on your review.  These things used to not be part of the workplace, but today, you are quite the recluse if you don’t share what you did over the weekend, or talk about someone’s upcoming divorce.

Both Penelope and Emily talk about how they are “moved” to be completely honest with their readers, to share their innermost feelings.  This seems to set them apart from the crowd of bloggers who still use vague references or pen names - and garner them a whole lot of flak from commenters…and family. But is it really them, or a growing cultural phenomenon to open up to strangers?  They aren’t the only ones doing it.  And as Penelope points out, history has had those who felt the need to chronicle their lives and experiences. 

Why would we have this desire to open up to strangers anyway?  It seems antithetical in a world where identity theft is very real and information management is big money.  Even branding has a lot to do with projecting the right brand information out there, not all the brand information.  Is it narcissism and self-infatuation?

Or could it be born of a lack of community?  In our world we are so very separated from each other physically.  Once upon a time, we had a community of people we interacted with, we shared with, we lived around.  Now, this is less so - and perhaps that prompts us to seek out new communities (Livejournal, Tribe, myspace, Facebook, blogs…) in which we can get that human connection again.  In a world where it is sometimes deemed weird to look people in the eye while walking down the street, we feel able to talk about our favorite sexual position online.  Or share our poetry.  What we did last weekend.  Our breakup, our loss of a friend, our one-night-stand, our embarrassing drunken situation.  Things we might only tell a diary or a close friend…

And further - we are able to be whatever we want to be.  In the physical community, if you talked a lot about being a dancer, but no one ever saw you dance, few would believe your initial statement.  Now, someone can go online and do a minimal amount of researching to have an opinion on anything, and then position oneself as being part of that community.  And few people will be able to check your credibility because they don’t REALLY know you, despite how many IM’s you share.  Perhaps we feel free in expressing everything not because we feel close to the people on the net but because we feel separate from them - protected?  From revelation, from being who we really are, from having to explain ourselves.  Entitlement?

These are all just theories and thoughts - I don’t have an answer.  But I’d like your theories and thoughts.  I’d also like to throw out a couple of questions for those who inspire my post.  I’d really like to get insight into the source of their sharing.

Penelope:  What drives you to post about your personal life?   You could just write a diary and keep it to yourself, or write emails in gory detail to a friend.  What prompts you to feel you should share these things with others? Is it a feeling?  A liberation?  Is it a self-established code that you live by?

Emily:  Your article really seems to indicate that you feel the person you were who shared everything was the wrong person to be and that you’ve changed.  What makes you feel you should share less?  Is it your negative experiences?  What is it that pushes you to distance yourself from the online sharing - and why do you think that is better than what you were doing?