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Would you mind if your parents blogged about you?

 If my parents told me that they had been documenting my life on a blog, I would be pretty mad. What if they posted embarrassing photos of me, or told stories that I’m not comfortable with? Even if the blog was innocuous, I would still be a bit creeped out. I don’t want my life to be on the internet for just anyone to see.

I like to keep my privacy online. I don’t put myself on social media much, aside from a sporadic Instagram post or story. When traveling, I like to use a VPN on public Wi-Fi to stay safe. Though to be honest, I don’t know if I would have the same opinion if I didn’t hear all about companies selling data on the internet. We are in an age where having your life on the internet is both at an all-time high and criticized at an all-time high. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard the discussion. Everyone knows about Facebook, or now Meta, having data privacy issues. This even came to the point of a class action lawsuit with a 725-million-dollar settlement. Further, I’ve had multiple classes tell me that once, Target’s data analytics were so accurate that they recommended baby products to a woman before she even knew she was pregnant. Still, social media is as popular as ever. On YouTube, one of the most popular genres is ‘family vlogging’, not far at all from parents blogging. My own mom has even watched some of these videos. To me, it feels chilling that some children grow up with millions of viewers seeing their day-to-day lives. The problem is, I’m a huge hypocrite.

I have countless profiles on different websites which almost definitely take my data and sell it. As I mentioned, I post on Instagram – owned by Facebook/Meta. I frequently text with my family using WhatsApp – once again owned by Facebook/Meta. All of these accounts are almost always connected. If you had access to these accounts, you’d probably know more about my habits than I consciously do. For instance, if you were able to access my family’s Amazon account, you could see all the movies watch on Prime, or how often we eat Thai food from Grubhub. To top it off, telling you and anyone with access to this blog my mom has watched family vloggers could even be seen as violating her privacy. Even though I use a VPN in airports, I don’t really know how a VPN works or how much it keeps me safe from those pesky hackers that the sponsored segment of a YouTube video loves to mention. So, who am I to get mad at my parents for hypothetically blogging about me?

I think it comes down to control. When I post on Instagram, I feel fine because I performed the action myself. If I decided to make a blog where I document my life’s events, I’d be in charge of what happens with it. If my parents even asked me for permission to write a blog about me, however unrealistic that is, chances are I would say yes. Purely being aware and knowing I have a part in the decision of what internet users know about me is soothing. I’m sure that everyone reading this has put a part of their life on the internet for others to see, nonetheless, you’d be mad if I converted https://colemanspersonalessays.blogspot.com/ into a blog about your daily life. The issue comes when you have no control over what information about yourself is shared with strangers or not. Of course, whether I make a blog about my life, or my parents make a blog about my life has no real effect on the grand scheme. Either way, the information could be collected and sold for targeted advertising. But having authority over my privacy still matters to me.

Comments

  1. Nyla Kyles October 4, 2023 at 10:12 AM

    I really like your essay. I think you have a very quick jumping off point which allows me to know what you're going to be exploring throughout this essay very soon. I like that you are very conversational. I also like how you explain how you being mad about your parents posting about you is somewhat hypocritical. I think my main issue with this blog is that somewhere in the middle everything gets a little hazy. you kind of go off on a mini tangent, I think to clear things up you should restate your original thought ( its when you were talking about being hypocritical). Other than that great post!

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  2. Yan LOctober 5, 2023 at 12:54 PM

    This was such an interesting read! When I first saw the prompt, I only thought about the embarrassment that comes with my parents blogging about me and not the safety concerns. I also thought it was pretty funny how you brought up the Facebook/Meta lawsuits and the case of the Target baby products. Speaking of Facebook, I would suggest that after the first mention, just use Facebook or Meta instead of "Facebook/Meta" as it kind of distracting. Lastly, I thought your last paragraph was really good, how it really comes down to your ability to control what is posted. I think you can talk/reflect a bit more on this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DmitryOctober 5, 2023 at 7:44 PM

    I think your point about agency in choosing what and where you release is a good way to articulate your position on this subject. Your mention that if you parents hypothetically asked and you said yes you would be fine. I think this helps to define exactly what your opinion is. I'd personally object to the comparison between this situation and company information collection, but the could be just because I've gotten used to that aspect of the internet. I noticed you have a knack for ending up on little tangents, and while they do help to widen a reader's understanding of you and your situation I do think that they break up the flow. I think focusing the information given to the reader more about the prompt will really help to allow each idea to flow from one to the next.

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