A Question For the (Cyber) Ages

As we settle back into the first few weeks of scholastic bliss, with fresh notebooks (or old ones with the fall semester’s notes ripped out), new books and hopefully a fresh attitude. Perhaps New Year’s resolutions haven’t been broken yet. So, instead of starting the year out with a question for the ages. Something along the level of “Why is the sky blue?” “What is the meaning of the universe?” “When will I get my refund check?”
While I like to keep things upbeat and a tad sarcastic, the perfect blend of sweet and tart-a cosmopolitan of words, if you will-the time must come where one has to be ‘real.’
Often the entire purpose of songs, movies, internet beef and some relationships, being ‘real’ is the basis of person’s outlook.
While on break, I had the opportunity to further delve into the social website networks of Facebook and Myspace during my downtime. The quirky and annoying application nuisances that give most subscribers and users alike a chance to ‘stick it to the man’ along with the other hundred thousand other peers.
On one such deep delving day, I noticed that there was a trend of epidemic proportions taking place that amused me to no end. It could be found, plain as day, in the ‘About Me’ section of each website.
In this section, users are able to paint the perfect picture of themselves for the masses (depending on privacy account settings) to view. The recurring scenario and storyline seemed to lie solely in ‘being real,’ ‘keeping it real,’ and several variations of the concept of realness.
It sounded pretty interesting, considering that everyone was real…where are the fake people? The ones that were being pointed out in rhyme, being cursed at? Who were the haters who are being encouraged to “stay on their jobs”? And above all, who decides on the criteria for the a ‘real’ person? Or, for that matter, who chooses the fake people, haters, ‘hate-ees’ and the like? It seemed somewhat unbalanced to see that every person believed themselves to be the model upon which the entire world (by extension of the web community) should mold themselves. I was witnessing more internet ‘e-thugging’ than was acceptable.
I took a few moments from constantly hitting F5 to refresh the page to search for the fake people.
After some extensive searching, I yielded nothing. No one was admitting to being a hater. No one admitted to being a ‘fake’ person. I was forced to come to the conclusion that perhaps all the senses of grandeur and importance was just in these poor souls minds.
Therefore, I have made it my mission-no, my 2008 New Year’s Resolution that will be declared then forgotten about-to find the haters and fake people on the internet.
Otherwise, the haters and hatees will have no guidance.