Thursday, September 15, 2016

Prompt 9/15/16

2. Would you mind if your parents blogged about you? 
       Based on how uncomfortable I'll get when I know my parents are talking about me to someone else, I'd probably be immediately mortified if they were spreading embarrassing childhood stories or complaints about how lazy I am on the internet for any stranger to read. Even worse is the possibility that someone who knows me might chance upon my parents' blog and eventually spread the contents to my entire circle or friends and acquaintances.   

       Part of the issue of having parents blog about you is that they know nearly everything about you; you best and worst moments, your moments of strength and weakness, and this is to be expected for such close family. But these are things that I would probably not be comfortable with if they were out in the open. No individual bares themselves to the world completely, and everyone has things they keep to themselves, or things they'd rather forget and never see resurface. When people that close to you are writing on the internet about you, there is a very real danger of these things being made public. And once something is made public, it more or less stays that way. Knowledge, when distributed over the internet, will quite often stay there or be saved elsewhere forever.  

      And parents seem more prone to spreading this type of information than others, but almost never with the intent to embarrass. Being the people closest to you, they see you in a different way. To them, you are their child and faults are sometimes noticed less. But what may seem fine to them can end up making things quite uncomfortable for you. One may have idiosyncrasies that they don't wish their friends to know about, and suddenly a parent blogs about it and it's out there. A past picture or story that seems cute to your parents could very well circulate and haunt you for a long time. 

       When it comes down to it, my own desire to never let my parents blog about me stems from the possibility that something embarrassing or uncomfortable may be posted and it may come to affect me if picked up by a friend, acquaintance, or family of such people. So if my parents remained anonymous, never used my name, and never posted pictures, so that the things on their blog couldn't be traced back to me or my family, I'd probably be fine with it. 

1 comment:

  1. Overall, I like how you set up your essay and I think you do well in making your point. I think there are two problems for me. First, you only look at the issue one way. Are there any cases when you might want your parents to blog about you? Would they necessarily spread embarrassing stories about you or might they brag about you? Also, I think the last sentence is a little confusing and doesn't really wrap up your point. Other than that I like your essay, and I can really connect to it.

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