Quote:
Originally Posted by infopop
You know, I agree. There's a lot of value just to try things out and experience life and experiment before you start publicly applying labels to yourself that will stay around for the rest of your life. That goes doubly or triply or even moreso for kids who are 12 or 13 or whatever.
The Internet, for good or bad, is a permanent record. You may "erase" something, or you think you can, but it never really goes away. There are screen captures or the "Wayback Machine" or whatever database collected and stored by who knows what marketer or agency or what.
As I've matured (I'll be 54 next month!) I came to understand that nothing is "really secret" anymore to anyone determined to know. At my age, I'm OK with that -- or at least I know I have to be -- but for kids who are still deciding who they are and who they will be, it's damned easy to get carried away with the openness encouraged by our culture.
/steps down from soapbox
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The weird bit is that we are all being bombarded with all sorts of warnings. A friend who lives in the UK told me a story about the Cadbury's "Fruits & Nuts" Chocolate bearing a warning that it may contain nuts. Rite, it IS called "Fruit And Nuts".
The 12-13 year olds are not receiving any warning, for the acts that may change their lives for better or worse, far beyond eating a chocolate bar which happens to be appropriately named.
The worst aspect of the whole thing in my books is that so many people are being brainwashed NOT to use their own brains. We want them to be consumers, not thinkers. So, a dude who goes totally public cannot really tell you what are the benefits he is expecting to receive for his brave action? So many people have come out, so he is doing the same. So many people buy those sneakers, so he wants to do the same.
Yet another aspect of this is that many people lull themselves into what is called 'liking to believe' that we are all somehow equal. And that we all have equal life circumstances.
There you have a successful dude who owns/runs his or corporate business. He chooses to come out. Sure, welcome to the tribe.
. Think now of a college dude who depends on his possibly conservative parents, who may totally disown him? He braves this step, too. The former dude ain't really going to fire/disown himself. The latter may end up with a huge debt, possibly homeless. Go, figure...
KD