Somewhere on the internet there’s a photo of me at a gargantuan beer festival. In this photo I’m young, and I’m sitting with my friends who are also young. They’re laughing and waving their beers and cigarettes in time with the polka music. My face is on the table, hands clasped above my head, and I’m praying for death.
The cruel universe did not kill me that night. Some of my friends hustled me out when the cops arrived. We journeyed hence with bail money, and then on to the living room floor of some guy’s apartment, where I slept the writhing sleep of the stupid. The next morning my mouth tasted like the inside of a wino’s shoe. My hideous backache was explained when I rolled off of the giant telephone upon which I’d been sleeping. Really, kids, they were as big as an ink-jet printer.
I’ve never seen this photo on the internet. But I know it exists, so it’s almost certainly out there. Our entire existence is online now, or will be once either Google or Facebook has stabbed the other in the heart and taken over.
A few job recruiters have recently advised me to sanitize my online presence. It seems the first thing a prospective employer will do is Google me, and if anything even a little weird shows up then they’ll toss my resume like it was on fire. So, I am attempting to scrub all the internet cracks and crannies I can find in an effort to wipe away the oddest bits of my life. It’s not that there’s anything out there that I’d be ashamed to show my granny, but I can’t be sure how persnickety employers are.
I feel like a bit of a light-weight for scurrying around behind myself like a cartoon mouse with a mop. However, I don’t think employers are doing anything wrong by searching for me online, or even by judging me. When I put something on the internet, it’s like I went to the mall, stood on a trash can, and screamed it as loud as I can. In front of a video camera that plays it back forever.
So I shall hie myself hence unto the very bowels to the internet, there to expunge all attestation of my prurient conduct. And feel kind of like a weenie.
Discurso fúnebre de Pericles by Phillipp Foltz