Thanks to the Internet, we all have an infinite number of options for screwing over our future selves. This is probably the only exception to my general crankiness regarding the timing of my birth. Being born in the 70s means I am less inclined to be physically or emotionally attached to my MacBook than a tween, teen or twenty-something would be. Added to that, I’m probably more aware of the negative implications of the Net only because it’s more of a new and strange occurence in my life than it would be for someone born safely on this side of the Polyester Era. I notice it because for most of my life it wasn’t there at all. I typed my book reports on a damn typewriter. A manual one. You had to be a man (or a tomboy girl) to whang those keys hard enough. Too hard, and the periods would make their point right through the paper. I know. Old school minus any hint of the ‘cool’ connotation.

I had a Mac Classic II when I was a freshman in college. The one with the postcard-sized screen. Badass, I’m well aware. And, no, it was not hooked up to the Internet. I swear on all things sacred that I had never sent an e-mail by the time I hit the dorms. And yet, I’m here to tell the tale. Did you get that that was sarcasm? It’s hard to get sarcasm across on the Internet. I need a special Sarcasm Font or something.

But do you know what’s super easy to get out there into the world so’s everyone can take a gander? Drunken nakedness, foul language (the title I originally wrote for this article had a very bad (and much funnier) word) and overall stupidity can be recorded for posterity so easily and then sucked into the Net, easily retrievable by anyone who takes the time to search out the dirt on idiotic, drunken freshman you.

Once again, I reel with the closeness of that call. I’m thanking the fates and sheer dumb luck that my ungraceful moments came and went before they ended up on the Internet. Because now, being so mature and wise beyond my years I never act rashly and do things I might regret.

Anyway, if you’re young and foolish and tend to say or do things you later wish you hadn’t (or can only vaguely recall), please remember that you and everyone you know with a computer and a recording device will be capable of making you either infamous or incredibly uncomfortable someday when your parents/kids/voters/prospective boss/potential mate cyber-vet you into cringing oblivion. Yes, I was dumb. But no one recorded it, so only a teensy fraction of the population has to know. And they were less than sober, too, so their recall would be lacking.

More stuff to read about cyber-vetting:

The rights and wrongs of cyber-vetting

The world of work: how cyber-vetting catches job liars

Ever been cyber-vetted?

‘Cyber-vetting’ and your ‘net rep’

Your digital dirt can come back to haunt you

Posted by Alexa Harrington