Online identity redux all over again
I was trying to fit this into my previous post on the topic but couldn’t find a way to work it in. Anyway, I want to address something Nikki said a while ago.
I guess my point is that some people have a valid, personal reason for not feeling like it’s all that and a bag of chips to have every detail of their personal lives on the internet. I don’t mind if anyone else does, but maybe it’s not for me. I realize what probably sets my take on it apart from some of these people is that I’m not *judging* anyone for having 100-0% of their lives online, I just understand why I make the choice *I* make, without feeling like it’s incumbent upon me to force it on someone else.
I want to respond to her comment because I sincerely hope that throughout all the times I’ve spoken about this issue, it’s been clear that my attitude is actually the same as what she says above. The crux of the matter is not how much or how little you choose to share about yourself online. We all have our own boundaries and set them as we see fit. What matters is that we respect each other’s right to set those boundaries differently.
I was getting very pissed off about this back at BlogSavannah, because when Gennie was leading her session she mentioned that she doesn’t use swear words in front of her son, and some woman in the group kept harping about it and saying she wasn’t “being honest,” because she uses those words on her blog. This woman really pissed me off, because who is she to make that call for Gennie? Get off her back already!
I would never attempt to “force” any degree of personal revelation on someone. That goes against the entire spirit of what I see as the power of blogging. These decisions are for each of us to make, on our own time, in our own spaces.
Believe it or not – and I say this only partially sarcastically – there are things about my life that I do not share online. I am a very private person in the sense that only a few people truly know me, good, bad, ugly, everything. It is very important to me to write openly online and speak my truth; but that does not negate my privacy and the fact that I have boundaries. Personally I don’t think this is such a radical notion, but apparently to a lot of people it is (I mentioned it here, and of course there’s always the whole sex thing with dudes).
Why do we assume that if you choose to share some things about yourself that are traditionally coded as “private” – i.e., ew ick keep it out of public conversation; that’s just not fit for polite company; that might make people uncomfortable; chin up, dearie – then you have nothing left that you keep to yourself or to a small group of friends/family, for whatever reason? And that just as the words you speak to a larger community are yours to share as you see fit, so are your reasons for not speaking about other things yours alone to determine?
Obviously, I think there is tremendous value in people – especially women – defying the traditional rules of what you can and can’t talk about. But only if they want to. If someone feels stifled, then I want them the find the tools and the strength to not feel stifled anymore. As Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” (I was recently reminded of this excellent quote via a post by AV Flox; eventually I want to write a direct response to that post.) Far too many of us feel stifled, so let’s split open the world one blog at a time – and no, I do not think that’s hyperbole!
Excellent piece.
Hi Amber. I discovered you via AV Flox’s blog, just now stumbled across this piece, and wanted to write and let you know I thought it was a fantastic reflection on online sharing, and the varying degrees of it across the web. Nice post.
[...] with this at the meeting, but I wanted to make sure there was absolutely no misunderstanding. As I said to Nikki a while back, the point is not to mandate that people must have a certain level of openness online, but rather [...]