It’s interesting how the Internet works. I don’t consider myself an overly private individual. If anything, I tend to share a little bit too much, only to find myself circling back later with a smidgen of regret.
The manual for how to deal with the public having (even a vague) interest in your personal life doesn’t exist because it can either be a source of great agitation (think, Sean Penn), or the materialistic spark that makes you feel validated (think anyone with the last name Kardashian). And… of course, there can be a middle ground. All of this to say, I’m still trying to figure out where my line is.
How do I want people to perceive me in social media? Should I just be an accurate representation of myself? Or should I blur the line between who I am and who I play on television? (Incidentally, I think Max Greenfield’s twitter is an excellent example of the latter choice.) These are questions that I wrestle with. For the time being, I’ve settled into what I think is the best option for me: Be myself. Even then, you need to turn the volume down a little. For example, this Fall I was vaguely critical of Arrow’s Canadian broadcaster because the time slot of the show kept being switched. I shouldn’t have done that. I was right… but I shouldn’t have vocalized my feelings in a public forum without all the facts.
The thing with sharing information about yourself that really startles me is how much of it is gathered by the media, compared to how much is volunteered by the individual. When you see items appear on your favorite websites or in your favorite magazines it’s almost always the result of a publicist or the individual themselves taking that information to the publication, not the other way around… Which in turn means that when an individual feigns annoyance about this reporting they’re (almost always) totally full of shit.
See? Interesting.
At some point last week my manager let me know that a newspaper was going to write a story about the, umm, itinerary of my holiday trip. The story was poorly compiled and (mostly) inaccurate. So now I’m faced with a dilemma:
Do I correct the half-right (and again… poorly compiled) story since that effectively means I’d be confirming something I had no intention of publicly sharing? Or do I go to someone that I trust and give them the story since it’s going to come out anyway?
The latter seemed like the right choice.
These aren’t actual problems, they’re more like interesting life-layers that didn’t exist for me until recently. Here’s to hoping I manage them well.
