Private Eyes(Watching You)

I love Hall & Oates. That's not a groundbreaking secret about me, but now you know that simply by reading my blog.

Thank you for reading my blog by the way.

The point is, you now know something about me, even if you don't know me personally. This is life on the internet. Anyone can find out information about someone else, providing that information is out there, and they can use that information to carve out their perceptions or to make assumptions about that person.

Even something as minuscule as saying "I love Hall & Oates" can have repercussions. Let's say, for some inexplicable reason, you hate Hall & Oates. Not only that, but you hate anyone that likes Hall & Oates. Therefore, based solely on the information you have gathered from this blog, you hate me. Now this may not be fair, but that's your choice. It's also my responsibility to control what I put out there for others to see, so as to not create a scenario where I make myself look bad.

Of course, that's an extreme example. I highly doubt I will lose out on a job offer because the person in charge of hiring has some kind of personal vendetta against Hall & Oates. However, what we post on the internet may not always have negative repercussions, we may just notice an odd change in our every day browsing.

It'll be interesting to see if, having posted my feelings about Hall & Oates, Rich Girl shows up in my suggested feed on YouTube. OK, I doubt that will happen, as I think I'd have to actively search for the group for Google's algorithms to know that I like Hall & Oates. The point is, however, that that sort of information doesn't go unnoticed.

I'll let you in on another secret. I also love Bruce Springsteen.

Heavy stuff here.

Last year Springsteen was on tour to commemorate the 35th anniversary of The River(Hell of an album, and also one of my favorite Springsteen songs). I had to go see this show, as The Boss was even touring with the famous E Street Band. My mom bought the tickets, because she's the best, and I couldn't wait for the opportunity to hear my all-time favorite artist perform live. Ultimately the show was cancelled, due to Springsteen's stance on North Carolina's controversial HB2. I was upset, but never at Springsteen.

I voiced my disappointment on not being able to see the show on social media. Then I began to notice something strange. I started noticing more stuff about The River popping up. I even noticed, at one point, that one of my suggested videos on YouTube was from a performance of the exact same tour from earlier that year. Perhaps it was coincidental, I look up a lot of Bruce Springsteen songs on YouTube.

(I'm responsible for at least half of the views on the video of his Super Bowl Halftime performance. I mean, he plays TWO songs from Born to Run during that show, which we all know is the greatest album ever made.)

But I digress. The point is, what we search for is no secret, and I don't think that's a secret either. Most people know that these algorithms exist, to do things like suggesting videos based off of what we search for. However, this was all just a roundabout way of saying that our activity on the internet can always be subject to repercussions. Soon, perhaps, more than ever.