Virtual Insanity: Online Lives Are Works Of Fiction

The internet gives us ‘regular people’ the opportunity to have a little bit of shine. But can we handle it?

Back in the days on the boulevard of Black Planet, people got comfortable with the concept of using what they had to amass online "friends.” We posted our most flattering pics, interesting celebrity shots found on the web, witty bios and whatever else we could to attract visitors to our pages. And so it continued on with MySpace and Facebook and now Twitter, Tumblr and Google+.

Everyone wants to be liked and appreciated and for many the web has given them the opportunity to experience that in ways they wouldn’t be able to offline.  Like Kanye said, “We can’t all be American Idols/but you can grab a camera and shoot a viral” video. And that’s a very cool thing. However, it seems that some people are taking the quest for online notoriety in the wrong direction.

As a journalist in this social media age, I spend a lot of time online. While I scan sites and timelines I see two glaring examples of the wrong way to get an online rep. For one, there seems to be a lot of folks who are blogging not because they love writing or because they have some opinions they want to share with the world, but because they see it as an opportunity to get attention. That’s weak like clock radio speakers, seriously. Yes, some people have grown large audiences from their blogging and a few -- as in a handful -- others have made a fortune. However, if your sole purpose for getting in the online game is so people will know who you are, I’d reconsider.