North Texas 23: Thing 8 & 9, Facebook & More Facebook.

I've been on Facebook for about a year now, ever since I accepted my current library job.

I'm of course a "fan" of ALA and other library groups. I'm even a Facebook administrator for the FB page of Progressive Librarians Guild.

I've gotten so many friends on Facebook, some professional, some from High School, some from previous jobs, etc, that it's really a diverse crowd. I actually find I am less boisterous or outlandish on Facebook because of the potential to royally piss off at least *some* of my FB friends. I have been retreating back to MySpace where I know fewer people in "real life" and thus feel more at ease to really speak my mind when I need to spout off. I don't make any reference to this blog on Facebook, and would not have mentioned my Facebook presence here if not for the requirements of the North Texas 23 Things project, nor will I mention it again anytime soon. Although I know I have regular readers of this blog (and am always slightly surprised to meet readers in person, amazed that anyone actually reads or listens to my rants here), I do find I avoid making overt linkages between my various online presences, whether on Blogger, or MySpace, or Facebook, or YouTube. I also recently started an account on Film Rookie under a screen name. Film Rookie is a YouTube-like video sharing site but newer and apparently less overtly censorious. I hold back from doing live personal rants on my personal YouTube channel because 1) I'm extremely camera-shy and self-conscious, especially about my own voice and 2) because one of my aunts just subscribed to my channel. If I do any live video rants in future, I plan to somewhat anonymize myself using camera special effects, and only upload it to Film Rookie and not YouTube. I'm an out-of-the-closet atheist to my parents & most of my friends, but not to my various aunts and uncles or cousins. It just doesn't come up in conversation. I guess my aunt on YouTube knows now about my atheism (I have some Xtranormal animation videos that admit as much and I didn't feel like taking them down), I'm going to refrain from posting live on-camera responses rants except in the form of animations from Xtranormal on YouTube.

Because two of my old High School friends who are Christian ministers are also Facebook friends, I tend to tone down the rhetoric over there, at least on my status updates. I used to have a big red Dawkins "A" on my front page, but it got buried in the last Facebook format update. Still, it's right there in my "info" page for anyone who bothers to look. Another High School friend handled his info on these topical questions more elegantly; For "Political views" he put "yes" and "Religious views" he put "No."; Wish I'd thought of that. Oh well.

And yes, I do think that Facebook, MySpace et. al. does make the job of a COINTEL type gov't program much easier, as we end up doing much of their work for them. Perhaps the Miranda warning needs an update for the 21st century; "anything you say or write, online or off, can and will be used against you in a court of law". No doubt unscrupulous prosecutors may quote you out of context, etc, to paint you in the worst possible light. This is some of the down side/dark side to all the boon of social connectivity these networking tools provide. The question you must ask is, is it worth it. I guess I'm a bit of a fatalist when I say, for me, "yes". I'm an "information professional", I have to be "out here", to show basic competence in these web tools, to "be where the users are", etc. It's what I do. I can't not do it, whatever (valid) reservations I may have that might keep someone else offline entirely. These are the choices I've made, and the compromises as well.

I blog here semi-anonymously under my initials, but as readers who have sought me out face to face at Library conferences know, I'm not hard to find in real life.
I've been posting very prolifically of late, but I often go for long stretches at a time where I have nothing new to say or have no motivation to write about whatever. Truth is I blog for me and me alone. If you subscribe to this blog expecting regular output, I promise to disappoint you eventually. Do not put me on your RSS, it won't be worth it. I get visited by Google spiders way more than human readers, I suspect. That's cool, I don't mind, I probably wouldn't read me either--too irregular.

I'm looking forward to the items on the NT23 Things that are actually NEW to me.