For someone who avoided Facebook for years, I've taken a ride on the wild side of online networking lately. Some of my encounters have made me want to swing out as far as I can, let go of the hand grips, and drop off the face of cyberspace.
Quite unexpectedly, I've been recruited into a group that posts pictures of Females in Fishnets; "rewarded" for documenting a trauma-induced aversion to food blogging; lectured on copyright infringement; and reminded that I am quite possibly losing my spunk and spark as an older worker overshadowed by go-get-'em Gen Y'ers. All in the last week or so.
My real life seems idyllic and pastoral in comparison, phew. Thank God I have one!
Let me explain. I've been site-hopping like a tourist with hot Vegas winnings. I was a little drunk on the idea of being a bonafide though yet undiscovered online brand, what with the soft opening of my Swoosh by Scrollwork shop on etsy (shameless plug! but it's my blog) and the ensuing attention paid to my young blog (there I go again!)
There's real-time life, and there's the carefully crafted online realm. I spent a lot of time in the latter last week. Escapism always held sway over me, even as a child. I read each volume of the World Book Encyclopedia one summer— but only the fairy tale section. By the way, a moment of silence for the demise of hard copy encyclopedia...I miss the smell of our musty home library.
At the University of Santo Tomas (Manila) as a Lit major, I joined a debate about whether or not contemporary literature should function as a magnifying lens on society's ills. I pressed for greater accountability for the journalists, leaving us "art for art's sake" writers free to pursue our escapist concerns. I thought I was in my element, too, silencing the cavernous auditorium with my pithy opinion, until a commenter afterward noted that he stopped chitchatting just to hear my deep voice. He didn't remember a word I had said. I had been pleading for permission to escape the burden of excoriating martial law and the corrupt Marcos regime, and my audience had already escaped that humid afternoon via my voice.
As an adult I am ever on the lookout for various avenues to transcend the right now. How could I resist the siren song of the three enchanting W's for very long? www-dot-anywhere-but-here took me places in guises of my choosing.
So last week I was on Flickr, a photo-sharing site; Darren Rowse Digital Photography School; etsy, a vintage and handmade global market; and Brazen Careerist, a Gen Y-pandering (oops! too harsh?) version of LinkedIn.
Does this girl not have a day job, you're wondering. Um, no. I work evenings, OK? And please, it's woman, not girl. Just sayin'.
- On Flickr I posted a picture of my leg right after I took off some really tight fishnet stockings that I'd worn while teaching dance for three hours. To me it was photojournalism. To others it was something else, apparently.
- On Rowse's DPS site I responded to the weekly assignment, "Still Life: Food" with an egg picture I had snapped for an earlier post, My first poached egg, and why I won't blog about food.
- On etsy I asked sellers how they'd react if I used a photo of one of their wares on my blog without asking for permission.
- On Brazen Careerist I responded to a thoughtful young man's query on how best to encourage older workers to regain their gusto for work.
If you went purely by the personas I concocted/seem to have been assigned by these various Internet communities, I am simultaneously:
A) A pupil-dilating exhibitionist with a predilection for racy hosiery;
B) A blundering idiot in the hallowed blogworld of foodies—and therefore a freak show;
(with 1,574 gawkers to date)
C) A blogger with a pitiful following and possibly objectionable content;
(On the flip side, I might also be the blogger whom fellow etsy sellers would appreciate to death for featuring a picture of their work)
D) A wizened baby boomer with a cautionary tale for today's up-and-comers.
"Grandma's Table" tells the tale of an impatient adult son who banishes his feeble mother from the dining table because she shakes and spills things. She has to eat alone by the broom closet. The son has a come-to-Jesus moment when he asks his block-building daughter what she's making and she replies, "A table for you and Mommy for when you get old." Memo to the Gen Y'ers: What goes around comes around.
What did I learn from my forays into these villages?
- Flickr viewers do not read blogs. At least not mine. If they did, I'd have seen a spike in my page views from the 1,500+ egg spectators.
- Etsy sellers are a feisty, candid, opinionated bunch. Kinda' like me.
- Some Gen Y'ers are mature leaders I would love to work with; some are full of themselves. Just like the generation I'm a part of, and generations to come.
- People who don't know me but read my online comments are more likely to sign up as followers of my blog than people who personally know me but secretly dismiss my blogging as a diversion from real life and the unsavory reality of unemployment. To the former, a cup of virtual tea; to the latter, to quote an etsy seller, "A fart in your general direction."
