I’m a fan of bacon. I strongly believe that E.T. hasn’t gone home yet. I dressed up as Britney Spears for Halloween and was unaware of how “hot” I looked until I saw myself tagged in some photos a week later.

I was an early member of the group “I Don’t Care How Comfortable Crocs Are– You Look Like a Dumbass” and I regularly contribute to the “My Friends Are Getting Married; I’m Just Getting Drunk” fan club— there’s dance floor footage to prove it.

All harmless Facebook banter protected inside the bubble of my virtual “network”, right?  As of this morning, yes.

But what if, unbeknownst to me, a college admissions advisior was evaluating the inner workings of my Facebook persona while weighing my college application? Clearly, he’d diagnose me as an unstable reject with way too much time on my hands.

(Shoutout to my fear of spontaneous combustion and the pics of my pug dressed up in casual wear.)

What if a future boss could flip through my (ahem, 23) photo albums at his leisure before following up on that job offer?

There’s a chance I wouldn’t make the cut for that spokeswoman position if he saw the pictures my roommates took of me on the toilet.

Think you can just wipe your crack clean by deleting your Facebook account?

Let’s hope so!

See back in the early days, Facebook’s Terms of Service promised us that any content we uploaded (and their rights to it) expired upon the deletion our profile. Yet the tides of social media sharing keep altering the rules in the Facebook game.

A recent Facebook Terms of Service update stated that anything you uploaded was theirs and they had free range to do whatever they please with it, even if you deleted your account.

Like preserved relics, your old content (sorry mom for the wet T-shirt contests) would be immortalized in the Facebook archives. Once there, it was subject to be sold, scanned, stored, streamed and more for a profit that you wouldn’t see a cent of.

However, early this morning, Facebook backed down on that terms change;  freeing up drunk, squat-poppers everywhere to run for public office without fear.

Had this reversal not happened (or should Facebook reinstate the changes) it’s kind of weird to consider what it would  mean for me as an upstanding, mostly G-rated, Facebook user.

I guess it means that Facebook could have owned that movie script I drunk-messaged my friend at 4 AM, owned that “note” I posted detailing how eating an entire bag of Olean will destroy your colon and owned all those remarks I’ve made about how annoying kids with rolling backpacks are.

As far as that stuff goes, ah, I guess they could have had it. (Sorry Facebook, looks like you won’t be making millions off my drunk version of E.T. 2)

However, if you’re a zealous artist, musician, or poet who relies on Facebook as your own personal gallery, than the same vehicle that you’re using to show yourself to the world, almost bought out your wares.

But breathe easy budding Miley Cryruses, your lyrics are safe again. Since Facebook’s recent terms update sparked a tumultuous backlash with legal threats, that song about your love of baby emus is all yours.

175 million Facebook users have amassed a virtual goldmine of content and data that could have been shopped around to anyone who’s willing to pay for it. Yet, no matter how much of ourselves we pump into the Facebook giant, these are logical implications to consider in an age where so much of what we do, and so much of who we are— is online.

But hey, I’m sure those pictures of you passed out in a chicken suit with a Sharpie unibrow will come in handy when you talk to your kids about not drinking in college!

POSTED BY Gossip Girl IN Funnies, Gen Y, Greek Life, In the News, New Features, gossip girl

02.18.09

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