Online Identity and the Trail that You Leave

Five years ago, I didn’t imagine having more than one identity. Well maybe... but only in the scenario of multiple personality disorder.

Now, I actually, and without much thought at all, easily have at least six distinct and active online identities attached to accounts with different applications, including Second Life.

As far as I can tell, there's only one identity associated with my full name and only this identity is so transparent that I could be called to task in "real" life.

It should be pretty simple for a good web sleuth to chronicle the last three years of my online life (since about 2004 the creation of content on the web has been ubiquitously moving toward social participation and generation) not that it would be very worthwhile or interesting!

I've been very open about the sites I contribute to, within the communities I belong to, and the screen names I use incorporate a portion of my name or descriptive adjectives about who I am.

Sometimes I leave anonymous comments, and on the rare occasion I've concocted a name, but that leaves me with a nagging and dirty feeling. It's because I don't have the courage to put my name behind what I think. Ultimately, I might not want my "official" identity to be "confused" with a website or comment that might not be politically aligned with who I am supposed to be. There are consequences for every action after all, however, anonymous me isn't even me, so unless you can prove it's me, there can be no consequences.

The beauty of the Internet.

When I leave a comment with my real identity, whether it's going to be read or not, I submit that post with a clear conscience. Even though I may worry it might come back in some form in the future to haunt me. It’s me leaving that comment. I’m making that statement. Yes, it can be traced back to me. Intelligent or totally incoherent. That’s another breadcrumb in my trail.

Facebook Rash

I rarely entertain 3rd party apps on Facebook.
I will absolutely check out things that people I know have developed, but I have a low tolerance for invitations and participation in the vampire, werewolf, plant growing, am I dateable, etc. It is just far too much to keep up with.

However, today, I was feeling generous, and decided I would try out something that a friend invited me to. I went through the steps and, sure enough, it was broken.
Here’s the error message:

“Oopsie! Looks like our application just made a Boo Boo...

Let's try it again - refresh this page.”

Really? Did an 5 yr old write your error message? I’m not already irritated that this thing doesn’t work, but your error message is infantile and lamely attempting to be cute? Come on people.