Things I find on Youtube
Is Anything Private Anymore?
I do not consider myself a "techie" but I do adore technology and take full advantage of what social media has to offer. I have tweeted and found it boring. I do facebook. I have my page and a hundred or so "friends" (small time compared to most). I have no idea how or why I friended them or they me but I enjoy the exchange of ideas, political positions and beliefs with my diverse friends even if they are only virtual.
I tend to be somewhat reserved on what I post. I do not write anything on my wall or anyone else's that I would not say out loud to their face. I think posting things too personal about your life or inappropriate photographs can come back and bite you where you do not want to be bitten. You do not need to look any further than Anthony Wiener (case we have forgotten Congressmen Wiener posted his wiener sort of in a tweet to an underage girl and he is not the only one to get snagged saying and/or doing too much on social media. Countless celebrities, leaders of American's Fortune 500 companies have all done or said things without realizing the World is watching! I guess we will all get the hang of it sooner or later.
In the realm of social media, my all time favorite is youtube. Youtube has something for everyone. From the beyond cute giggling babies to reliving my youth watching concerts from the 1970s of groups long since gone to old television shows. Youtube is a wealth of entertainment. Sometimes, however, I feel like a voyeur watching some of these videos. Extremely personal videos of tragedies, loss of loved ones or worse yet the last few hours of a loved one's life have been recorded and broadcast to total strangers. I do not understand those videos. Who in the gripes of sadness over the pending death of grandma thinks to grab video recorder and start taping? Then to put it on youtube so the masses can critic your work? Which they do. Many sad, horrific videos have "postings" from people who seem to have all the enthusiasm and compassion of a Jerry Springer audience write the most coldhearted hateful things. I wonder if these haters ever consider their words might just bully some distraught person to take their own life.
I am much older than the current generation, which is dubbed the GenXers. I was raised in a time when certain things were safely kept locked in the closet, although, the baby boomers which spanned from 1946 to 1963 ( I am on the declining side of the graph) did start the "tell it like it is" and "be yourself" mantra. I still am very private and conservative in actions so some of the stuff I find on youtube seems so intrusive into someone's personal life that I could not imagine. Not so with GenXers.
It may be us Baby Boomer parents that created the "tell all" "show all" attitudes of the GenXers. After all, when the Xers were born (mostly starting in 1985 to 1993) the invention of the video recorder hit the market. Of course Baby Boomer parents were going to record every moment of our child's lives! Unlike our parents, who were the World War II generation and more involved in earning a living, buying the American dream to worry about our self-esteem, we were going to make sure our little boomlet babies had ALL the attention and were told daily how "great and special they are" hence, the need of Xers to continue feeling like the star of their own movies by recording all things good or bad that happen to them without any reservations of appropriateness or filtering those things that are (or should be) kept private!
The reality shows like the Kardashians where nothing is private whether it is nude yoga or Klhoe's husband asking her to call a friend for a 3-way, have directly fueled this need for non-celebs to broadcast their own reality show via youtube. If crappy reality shows and average citizens making their own reality video for broadcast on youtube is all we have to offer the World it is no wonder most of the World hates the USA.
Don't get me wrong, I accept my part in encouraging bad youtube videos by watching them. And if we censor what is broadcast on youtube are we violating our freedom of speech rights? I often wonder if the Founding Fathers had more confidence in our ability to self-censor than we deserve. Maybe they did. Maybe we have gone so far off course to insure freedom of speech that we no longer consider what is appropriate to let the World know and what should be kept private.
