I just read this piece and absolutely love it. This dude seriously hit the nail on the head.
I think this is why I hate being anonymous. Out of all the stupid anonymous blogs I’ve started up over the years (there have been plenty), I’ve only actually kept one of them alive and it’s fairly new. Honestly, I doubt it will last long.
I hate being anonymous. I like having a name. I like attaching my name to opinions, and I like people knowing it’s ME, Alex Priest, not some faceless figure in a crowd. I don’t even care if people know it’s me when I’m wrong or when I screw up, or when I say something stupid. Out of 60,000-some-odd tweets, I’m sure I’ve said plenty of stupid things in 140 characters or less and dammit, I’m proud of it. Or least I’m proud that I learned from those mistakes.
Anonymity is bullshit.
I mean really. Who thinks they’re special for being anonymous? You’re not being anonymous because you want people to focus on “your content” or any of that crap. You’re probably anonymous because you’re too chicken to let your own words actually be attached to your reputation. Anonymity is the lamest way to be a conformist. Yea—I just called you out. And I called me out because I’m just as guilty of it as anybody else, at some points.
Anyway, read the piece. You won’t regret it. It’s fascinating and it makes you think. I guess that’s the whole point.
So I’m stranded at a JFK airport bar with a shitty wi-fi connection and no wall socket within reach. My flight’s been delayed for five hours, I’ve got 23% battery left, and a beer on the table, so hell, I figured I’d write a blog post.
It’s been a busy 2012 already. Between work craziness (thanks, DC Taxi Commission), food poisoning (as horrible as it sounds), visiting my baby nephew (D’AWWWW), and now traveling (en route to Uber HQ in San Francisco), I haven’t had a whole lot of time to stop and sort of reflect. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but in the little bit of free time I have had I’ve basically been sleeping or watching How I Met Your Mother.
I’m totally Ted, by the way.
I’m feeling my life priorities shift in real-time. A year ago, I think I can safely say that my number one priority was graduation (obviously), and number two was probably my online reputation. Now, I have to be 100% honest, I could seriously care less about that second (the first one being irrelevant for obvious reasons).
Maybe it’s because I have a new job. Maybe it’s because my reputation is already fairly solidified. Maybe it’s because my social network is changing, or because I’m feeling a greater need for personal fulfillment rather than social fulfillment. I don’t really know, but I’m finding that—as much as I love my blog and Twitter and Facebook and all that jazz—I’m focusing less and less on what happens there, and more and more on what happens in the here and now, that I can touch. I think this is all a good thing.
Now let me stop you there: this isn’t a “I’m over social media” post, because that’s stupid. It’s a “my priorities have shifted” post. Social media is and likely always will be a very important part of my life, and something that I greatly enjoy. I’ve met amazing people through digital tools, and I certainly don’t want that to change. I’m just finding that I care less and less about Twitter followers and SEO, and more and more about what kind of real change I can make in the world.
But now, I’m finding that there’s something just more exciting about meeting people in person, and not online. I want to meet someone and have a conversation about who they are, not what their Twitter handle is. I want to know who their best friends are, what their passion is, where they long to travel and what they want to achieve—not what their favorite metric is or the coolest marketing campaign they just heard about.
This is getting deeper than I’d planned.
I’ll put the brakes on this one for now. Suffice it to say, I feel my priorities shifting. And not only that, but I can actually feel my social network changing, my hobbies transforming, and my day-to-day routine transitioning to an entirely different one than it was even three months ago. Weird.
