Sharing on the Internet

I recently posted my first pole dance video to my regular youtube channel (see below). I only have one channel mostly because I am too lazy to log in and out of accounts all of the time, plus now you sign in with your gmail account and I only have one of those anyway, so yea. I don't really know how all this mess works. All these stupid mergers. They break my brain.

 I was putting together the video for my tumblr in which I account every little detail of my pole progress. I do this for myself mostly, because I have found recording everything and watching my progress is one of my biggest exercise motivators, but I also enjoy watching and sharing with the pole community on tumblr as well. As I was doing this I thought, why don't I make this kind of fancy and put it on youtube? Then I thought about how my youtube channel is already so random. I have several really old, shitty animation tests, some newer shitty animation tests, a song by Brasstronaut (ironically my highest viewed video), and a handful of my disappointingly unpopular poetry vlog videos (seriously, I have to harass my Facebook friends into watching them). Besides, I have been trying to keep my pole life separate from the rest of my life. I want to scream every time someone mentions by fall back career to being an artist and go on a rant about pole dancing's undeserved bad rep. Well ok, pole dancing has deserved a bad rep. But it also deserves a good one too, for so many reasons, but we won't go into that right now.

Of course, I caved in to posting it to youtube, and also my Facebook, because I couldn't stand the idea of having to faction myself off into personalities. It always sounds so appealing, having some sort of mysterious second life. It is like being a superhero! Or Hannah Montana!! ...Or something like that. But no matter how hard I try to be mysterious and secretive on the internet, I just can't. For some reason, I feel the burning desire to share just about everything about myself on the web.

This is ironic, because I am well known for being an unreadable wall of bitch-face in real life, and also because most people are the complete opposite side of the fence as me. To a lot of people, revealing personal information on the internet feels incredibly risky and rather foolish, whereas talking about it in person is no biggie. I have been questioned before about how I can possibly share so much information about myself in this very blog, particularly the information about my sex life (or lack thereof) and other such things. My answer to this is actually somewhat complicated, so let me explain my opinion on sharing on the internet.

First of all, the biggest reason why I don't worry about what I say is because my blog does not get a lot of traffic. In the grand scheme of things, I am a blip in the internet world. Not even. I am more like a grain of sand on the beach of the universe. I may have a Klout score of 51, which is higher than the average, but I still only get on average 40 views per blog post (then again, Klout is also really dumb). Most of these people coming to this blog already know me in real life, enough so that they actually like me and therefore will probably automatically like whatever I have to write about. They also already know many of these things about me, and if they didn't, I wouldn't be afraid to tell them. So it doesn't even really count. The real fact of the matter is no one gives a shit. I have 400 Facebook friends, but only 10% are evidently actually paying attention to anything I post. And I post nearly every day. I am a freaking internet attention whore! This is the thing about the internet. No one is reading your every post, tracking you down, stalking you, whatever. Except maybe your mother. Or Grandmother. And that creepy guy from high school. But other than that, no one cares about you. Everyone on the internet only really cares about themselves. That is how social networking works. Unless you somehow manage to go viral or be someone important, whatever you post on the internet is just going to end up in internet oblivion. People are too busy paying attention to themselves. Remember those surveys we all used to fill out in our notes or  on myspace? Guess what? No one ever read yours, unless they copied and pasted it as a template to delete your answers and write in their own. So if you are ever worried about writing something personal, just remember: 90% of your dearest friends will completely ignore it, 9% will probably think you are obnoxious and pretend like they didn't read it, and maybe 1% might actually care. Half of those people might even "like" whatever you said.

Besides all that, I have also built up quite an immunity to this sort of anxiety, just like my immunity to naked people (or anything to do with sex really). Most of the time, whether it be writing about my vagina or looking at someone else's, I don't even think twice. I have been doing this internet thing for awhile now guys, it's cool. I started talking to strangers when I was 12 (and they weren't even offering me candy!) I have lurked, participated in, and trolled many a forum, from neopets to swanky art sites. I have played and been addicted to many a MMO. I have found in all this time that yes, there are weirdos out there, but just like real life, most people are generally pretty nice and fairly normal. As far as normal can go with people who live most of their lives on the internet anyway. In any case, I have actually made quite a few friends that I have never met before. And some of them I have met, after knowing them for some time over the internet. And it wasn't even that awkward. Only a little bit.

So I guess you could say that typing things on a computer to no one in particular has become so routine for me that it has become meaningless. I don't mind really. It is my chance to actually say stuff, because I am so bad at it in real life anyway. Hey, if I am lucky, maybe someone might actually pay attention. Or care. Or something nice like that.

That being said, that doesn't mean that I don't get attention from everyone's favorite thing: creepy internet guys. Why, just after posting that super slutty pole dancing video of mine I got several messages and comments from random dudes telling me how hot I looked and telling me "whatsup." If only I had a better quality camera, they might have been able to comment on my jiggling belly or the cellulite on he back of my legs as well. That would have been good to throw in there. But as well as they know their way into my heart and pants, I resisted and ignored these comments. However, this wasn't the first time I have gotten attention for posting things about myself that are revealing in one way or another. I have gotten countless Facebook messages and had some really amazing awkward conversations. I think it must be an unspoken rule among guys that if you are afraid of talking to a girl in a normal way and maybe asking her to hang out in real life, you should first try getting intoxicated in some way and/or ask her to get naked on Skype. Or just invite her to watch you get naked on Skype. Because really ladies, what is more exciting than watching a guy jack off? We haven't seen enough of that on chat roulette, right? That is definitely gonna capture our hearts.

I know for a lot of people that sort of situation might be mortifying. Who knows though? Some might actually jump on board with it. I mean, someone out there must be giving positive reinforcement for this sort of behavior. Either that or clearly men are just unanimously dumb. You can decide for yourself, I suppose. Personally, I feel the most entertaining thing you can do is turn them down, yet still egg them on just enough to see how long it goes on for. I guess that kind of makes me a tease or a bitch or what have you. But in my head I rationalize it that they aren't really being very respectful to me, so I can play their game with them if I want. That is totally fair, right? I guess it is my way of seeing how much they really want me. Some guys get bored after a short conversation. Some guys are amazingly persistent however, and even my dry, snobby sarcasm doesn't turn them off... Did I say sarcasm? I meant superior wit. But yes, some of my creepy internet guys have actually turned into friends. In a weird I'm-going-to-keep-denying-you-sex-friends kind of way. I appreciate these friendships. They make me feel powerfu--Er, I mean, liked--I mean... I like having friends?

However, even though all the "what is your favorite position?"s and "tell me how you like it"s are super fun to deal with, I think the most awkward conversations happened when a guy innocently asked me if I thought he was cute. I did not. It's easy to brush off a dude who is being a total asshole and not showing you very much respect, but a guy who is showing genuine loneliness is the worst of them all. Then you actually feel like a jerk. That's never fun. I think I prefer the assholes. You can take out all your pent up aggression and frustration at being ignored by men all the time on them. The irony is fantastic!

So there isn't really anything to be afraid of out there, in my opinion. Sure, take the regular precautions of course. Don't tell strangers you just met in a chatroom (do people still use those? I'm not sure) where you live and remember: Craigslist personal ads are always best kept as a spectator sport. Other than that, I have found that it doesn't really matter what you say on the internet. You are still who you are, and if people don't like it, they can unfriend you, or stop following you, or whatever. They just have to deal with it, and it isn't you problem. The internet is my chance to be upfront and honest about anything I feel like and I am not going to lose something so valuable, because god forbid I ever become good at real life conversation. I will just stick to my aluminum and plastic fortress. It's happy here.