TRUE...it is so very very true, that the WWW at the beginning of all of those websites, actually stands for "World-Wide Web". Most kids today don't fully get the concept of that, and it could be because they aren't seeing the forest for the proverbial trees. They play on the web all day, work on it, work out on it, game, stream, learn, and talk on it, but they don't fully grasp that literally ANY ONE and EVERYONE who knows a thing of two about investigating will in fact, be able to find out more than you probably wanted them or anyone else to find out about you - - oh, but it's OK, we all have the same problem! You can find out all you may want to explore about me, just like I'm able to dig in as deeply as I want to in order to find out about you! No secrets, right? Not anymore. There hasn't been real privacy since the turn of the 21st Century. You knew that, but whether or not you were willing to admit it to yourself is another thing!
Used to be that "WWW" stood for the Wicked Witch of the West! I know a thing or two about her as well. I played her, took on her role for more than a decade back in the 80s and 90s as I dressed up as the vocalized villain and swept my evil ways into the Oklahoma City Zoological Park ("The Zoo") in order to help the kiddos on their journey of Haunting the Zoo! It was more than fun, let me tell you, and before the security detail got involved, we costumed artists and entertainers were free to roam the entire zoo, chasing kids, scaring parents, making pretty much a scene anywhere and everywhere we could - - patrons weren't supposed to go past the ropes, but when they did you know I volunteered to wrangle a few. It didn't take long to do it; not with my wickedly spell-binding cackle, and the pointing of my broom! Can you hear me? "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too...." as laughter and blood curling screams were sent out into the moist dark October skies! "Get back! Get back behind those ropes dear, or I'll....."
Not today! Not in 2021. WWW (which actually is rarely ever used anymore) unleashes any and all dire, dull, dear, or drab information that may be sent out over the airwaves - - frequencies are a beautiful thing. I can be in my office at home, minding your business instead of minding my own. I can decide, if I choose, to go to a site that may or may not have your arrest records (mine as well) and it may or may not tell me if your parents have been arrested, if they are on the boards of any questionable foundations, if you've ever had surgery and for what. If I want to, I can look up your name, birthdate, place of birth, and maybe one other form of identifying tidbit; say maybe what you do for a living now or what company you once worked for, and I can find out if you were fired, terminated, quit, still work there, if you ever wrote a presentation, perhaps it will let me know where you lived at the time.
Keep in mind that skip-tracing, investigating people for the sake of locating them so one can collect a debt, has been a practice in America since the early 1900s; it's not a new thing, but the methods have become so very convenient. When I first began scoping out information about people (I worked for an investigation service while I was a paralegal, and then after I left the law firm I worked extensively for the private eye as an internal investigator) for insurance fraud purposes, I was able to use what we called a Cross Book. It was a book that was literally published by someone, but it had names, addresses, phone numbers, places of employment, whether or not the person used public utilities, had cable or telephone services, and this was how we cross referenced names, birthdates, etc in order to find the right John Smith in order to contact him to ask him for payment. It was and is perfectly legal, but I did draw the line at speaking to a kid or family member and pretending to be a friend or acquaintance of said John Smith. I refused to compromise my ethics for a paycheck then, and I hold to that mantra today as well.
As a professor, and certainly when I taught at the secondary level, I would always remind my darling students that WWW did in fact stand for World Wide Web, and I could use it at any time I wanted to in order to copy and paste their essays into a Google search to find out whether or not they plagiarized their work. Today, there are apps that specifically tattle on would be cheaters, and the investigative nature of my searching has been replaced with just a few clicks of a mouse. Where's the fun in that? No glory, no sport whatsoever. I've taken to using these apps and almost allowing them to fully grade the essays because I don't want any good or bad bias to play a role in my subjective grading of a paper. Let the machine be the bad guy. WHY am I telling you all this?
Seems a good friend, we'll call him friend, he's more of a guy I follow and admire online, has a problem with people knowing much about him. He's out there, he's producing music, he's publicly asking for support and yet wonders how it is that we (the fan base) may know something about him when he didn't post it - - your son posted it. Your cousin posted it. Your mother posted it. Your aunt on your mother's side who is related to you cousin's ex-girlfriend posted it. You don't fully yet understand the words WORLD WIDE WEB. You are not the only person posting about you; you are not the only person related to you who is posting things that relate to you. You are not the only person who is related to someone who doesn't understand that WWW is in fact both interesting and permanent. Your life, at least your life since around 1997, has been recorded, categorized, systematically and/or at times randomly chosen to be memorialized by at least one or two someones who feel the need to post something that may or may not be in your best interest. Fighting it is futile, the best thing to do is to get in front of it, and stop defending it. Just know it's there and it won't go away any time soon.
It may be really really harsh to be brought out into this particular light, and Plato may have been onto something when he brought it up in the first place (You can Google that too). It is never easy to realize that you are not alone and it is never easy to realize that you are absolutely alone. It is never easy to find out that someone knows this or that, and you have no control over what they may do with that information. Just let it go - - let your yes be yes, let your no be no, give all your worries to God and move forward -- the past is the past is the past and if someone uses it to hurt you, shame on you for not being strong enough to first admit the folly, and then being stronger still by saying "Yeah, that was me, I did that, I'm an idiot, but I learned from the experience." We don't have time left on this Earth to sit around moaning and complaining about what so and so posted or read recently that had been posted. Glory to God, already! Move forward.
It's all good. I can see where it would be shocking and it would be upsetting, but I learned a long time ago to just say yes, that happened, or no, that didn't happen. I can tell you, a quick search of my name will show you both my bankruptcies my evictions, my divorce, the five-year court battle over my ex abusing my children, custody, lack of child support -- did I mention evictions? I was evicted at least four times I think. Yeah, I had a hard time of it raising kids without support - - damn near killed me, but the thing is, there is another way to look at all this increasing knowledge and seemingly endless swirling of data drowning all of us - - the Bible told us it would happen -- and happen at the END. We are getting closer and closer and closer to seeing Jesus face to face - and let me tell you something, you can Google all day long and not find something more permanent and more glorious than that.
Happy trails - - just be careful out there now that you're an adult.
