One of those annoying meta posts

Was reading Reader’s Digest today. On page 154, there’s a story about cleaning up your online presence for present and potential employers’ benefit — for example, taking down that photo of you totally wasted on Cinco De Mayo, or whatever, so that you do not come across as a complete inhibition-lacking tippler to people who may want to offer you gainful employment.

They make a good point.

If you are my age or younger, a great deal of your socializing and network-maintaining is done online. The internet, and one’s presence thereon, is something that comes naturally to us and that brings us a lot of enjoyment.

Many people of a certain generation will not understand this, the drive to keep on social-networking, to post public photos of yourself looking stupid. To them, it’s airing dirty laundry, it’s embarrassing, and it’s improper. I get that, too. I’m closing in on 30 and while that is, by most accounts, Spring Chicken territory, I have also felt the first confused breezes of being surpassed by the next generation and of no longer being the Youth that the Youth Culture is talking about. I have yet to fully grasp how the hell one uses Facebook, for example. It makes no sense to me and I suspect it never will.

But blogging is also, as noted previously in my five-year-anniversary post, one of my favorite and longest-standing hobbies. I like sharing what I’ve cooked or sewn or thought about. Sometimes those things are not appropriate for a business setting. Sometimes those things include copious low-class language. But — and here’s the thing — I believe it’s OK to have hobbies that don’t adhere to the dress code.

This line is a line I continue to walk. It’s difficult; I believe the best bloggers — the best writers — are those people who bare it all, who dig deep and offer up all sorts of honesties and truths. Those are the best people to read, and they are the people I always go back to. I don’t feel comfortable in doing that, in being embarrassingly honest. I admire those who can but I tell you right now that I don’t have the balls. I don’t regret that, either; I know I share enough as it is, and I also know that I end up sharing more than I consciously realize.

But look where it’s gotten me. Scores of new friends and acquaintances, a lucrative blog advertising deal (oh wait), the chance to catch up with the girl who used to give me a ride to high school in tenth grade, the opportunity to flex my creative muscles (even if I find them weak and flabby, it’s good exercise). I wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t get tangible, positive results.

All this to say: Yes, we know. This generation does get it. We put a lot out there. But we get a lot back, too.

Though maybe it wouldn’t hurt if we hid the camera, put down the beer and tucked in our shirt.