Identity

this internet contraption is duplicitous and unbalanced. for the private sector: one can make up whatever they want and present it as fact. so this idea of truthiness has spilled over into defining ones personality.

with the advent of myspace, you can create a profile and lie thru your teeth and present it as "the real me." i've visited old friends' pages and they are filled with details i never knew about them, and am skeptical to some of their claims. (i'm sure dating sites are the pinnacle of such behavior.) it's a borderline manifestation of their ideal selves. these avatars have as more interaction with one another than i do with the real person.

however, life is much different in the public sector. president bush said on sunday "we've never been 'stay the course'." for which got a healthy amount of flack. tony snow claimed yesterday that he could only come up with eight times that the president used the term over the last four years. kieth olberman racketed up 29 instances of the term (clip), and i'm sure there were plenty more from other, non-televised speeches. or maybe snow was referring to 8 speeches that the president delivered dozens of times across the country while his poll numbers precipitately dropped.

second k.o. clip. (more after the video):

so back to this idea of truthiness, with the ubiquity of record, that is having everything you ever say, do or write being of public record our private lives are becoming more exposed every day. private people (re: not in the public eye) can manipulate this fact by altering their online identity. never has it been so easy to reinvent oneself: fill out a survey and claim you are a buddhist and for all intents and purposes suddenly you are. how can anyone argue with that?

with old speeches and corrupting information hitting the echo chambers of the netosphere, the smallest indiscretion could and does effect our elected officials. now i think this is mostly beneficial as it extends the period of viewership (as i don't own cable, i am able to watch clips from the previous nights broadcast, and at my leisure)

my fear is that politicians, as insular as they already are, will retreat further into heavily orchestrated appearances. much like the touted 'town hall' style meetings the president has carried out across the country: scripted questions with a predetermined, sympathetic audience. it's more theater than discourse and the local news carries his scripted oration as a genuine, in the moment response.

and this will only get worse. if there is any lesson learned over "stay the course"-gate is that politicians will be even more tight lipped, confined and staged.