The Disappearing Internet

Apparently things posted on the internet disappear at different rates. I suspect this is one of those little-understood qualities of mechanical devices, like the crisis detector in the photocopy machine that makes it stop working when you absolutely have to have copies within a short period of time.

I think it’s connected to the detonator that makes the print cartridge need replacing and explode on you whenever you’re wearing a new white dress shirt and have 45 minutes to get to an important appointment 30 minutes across town.

Things posted on the internet seem to disappear as well, at least, when they were somewhat useful or interesting and you’re trying to find them again. The speed with which they disappear is apparently tied to their usefulness to the person who is searching for them.

An essay about some particular current event that isn’t merely the ranting of a madman, but makes points that you want to consider and reconsider while you ponder through the choices would probably disappear within just a few hours, especially if you failed to note the web address for it.

A poem that happens to hit a chord and you know that it’ll mean something to your friend who’s struggling through chemotherapy right now and feels a bit homely because all of her hair has fallen out might last longer because of the empathy of the Universe, but it might not, too. Karma is fickle that way.

That cute video of a kid playing with a bunch of puppies that made you smile and would brighten the day abit will likely hang around longer because 4,283 of your closest friends, and their closest friends who like to hit the “forward” button will send it to you. It will disappear the day before you decide that it would be perfect to go in the PowerPoint presentation you have to make the next day.

Try to find something that’s really important, though, and your day will be shot. Those gigabit-in-a-haystack searches are remarkably frustrating when it’s something that you really, really want to find.

Other things, of course, hangs around like kudzu on a vacant lot, especially if it’s about you or someone you love and maybe is a part of your life that you’d just as soon have go away. You can hardly kill the stuff, especially when it is something that probably shouldn’t have been posted in the first place.

The picture put on the front page of the newspaper under the headline, “Local Man Arrested for Embezzlement” or the piece about foreclosures that chooses your house as the one to spotlight, for example.

Given the fact that so many things that you’d rather not have broadcast to the world are publicized, I’m amazed at what people put on the internet voluntarily, either on social networking sites or even just general blog or informational pages.

It’s easy enough to do inadvertently if you use those forms of communication. You forget that you’re not in a private conversation, but instead are blasting out the topic of discussion to whomever happens to come across it. We like to share, and get in the habit of putting photos and personal information out there.

Pictures of your kids. Or your parents. Or yourself that aren’t especially flattering with some self deprecating comment.

Sometimes those come from your “friends” (or “frenemies” – people who are ostensibly your friends, but do not have your best interest at heart). What real friend would put a picture of you lying passed out next to a toilet in a pool of your own body fluids after having overindulged, especially if they’ve taken permanent markers to decorate you before commemorating the event with photographs?

Don’t believe me? Check out http://www.latenightmistakes.com/ to see what’s been posted.

Before the internet those types of events were kept somewhat discrete. There might be a photo, but it was a hassle to get the film printed, and then there was only one negative. If you were really unfortunate, an unflattering pic might make it into a high school or college yearbook, but usually faculty advisors exercised some discretion there. The images that weren’t chosen might pop up again at class reunions, but your kids aren’t there to see that and after that much time, well, frankly who cares?

Unless you were truly a famous person, it was likely that the hubbub (and the evidence) would die quickly, except maybe to your immediate family. They tend to remember everything stupid you did through your entire life, and siblings, especially, like to remind you of these incidents at inopportune moments.

Like when you’re chastising your own child for doing something, especially when that child wasn’t aware that yeah, at the same age, you and a friend broke into the friend’s parent’s liquor cabinet, drank an entire bottle of schnapps and then went to a church revival meeting and insisted on singing in the choir.

Being reminded of that will take the steam out of a good parental lecture, but it’s not blasted for the world to hear or see. It’s a gentle jab from your brother reminding you to take it easy on the kid, lest other stories be brought up from the distant past!

Now, though, many people seem to lack discretion on what they post about others or even about themselves.

Those involved in custody disputes over children frequently find that pages of photographs – sometimes with their own comments – get printed out and entered into evidence when their ex is attempting to alter custody.

You can be the greatest mom in the world, but if pictures of you drinking a mixed drink the size of a mixing bowl while holding your two year old with the caption, “Casey’s first Margarita” is posted, even in jest, that’s going to have an impact and NOBODY is going to believe that it was just fruit punch in the glass.

Even worse than that, put pics of your new love interest on there, resplendent in his orange jail coveralls and talking to you on a telephone receiver through a glass pane with the caption, “Only 8 more weeks until my Sweet Baboo gets out!” and see how fast it takes a judge to enter a new custody order there.

Those things hang around forever, self-inflicted wounds that are memorials to a person’s stupidity.

Maybe the only hope is that someone will need the piece about the stupid thing we did, and it’ll disappear forever. That’s tough to coordinate, though.