More on Facebook, the “Coolest Self” and Why I Still Think Scoble’s Kinda Silly (But in a Good Way)

I’ve been taking some heat for what I wrote about Robert Scoble yesterday and his very well thought-out response. Everyone’s questions and comments have given me the opportunity to question my position and re-think it. So here are a few conclusions I have come to.

First of all, Facebook has changed. A lot. It used to be a site where people could come to build a network of people they actually knew from college and high school. The idea was to build a profile that showed your “coolest self” by sharing photos of you having fun and doing outrageous shit with all your friends. In some ways, it was a way to testify that you were doing just fine in college. That you didn’t miss your mommy, or your friends back home, or your teddy bear. It was also a way to make an ex-lover see that you were doing just fine without them.

If you don’t believe me, just watch this episode of the hilarious show We Need Girlfriends. It’s about MySpace, but the “coolest self” behavior is clearly evident:

Now, to serve the “coolest self” purpose, you’d occasionally need to post a photo that an employer might not find in the best of taste. There are approximately 369 photos of me currently tagged on Facebook and there used to be a LOT more. I took some of them down when I realized that they might be misinterpreted. It’s not truly bad behavior, but there are a lot of photos and videos out there of me and my friends running around in bathing suits, skirts short enough to be headbands, and outrageous Halloween costumes. In short, things that might raise eyebrows in the “real world.”

A number of those photos were strategically taken/posted to cater to a very small group known as “people we used to date.” We all got a secret thrill from knowing that our ex-lovers might be looking at our online photos and wishing they hadn’t been so rash in cheating/breaking our hearts/whatever other wrongs they had perpetrated against us.

Steve Broback and I joke that Facebook’s alternate URL should be doingjustfinewithoutyou.com.

Now, Facebook has become a place where people who know each other in even the most tenuous ways can become friends and share stuff. I think it’s really, really cool. But it means I have to radically re-think how I use the system. It also means that I might have to take down or at the very least un-tag even more of those treasured “coolest self” photos.

That is, of course, unless Facebook creates very, very granular privacy settings that let the user categorize their friends and then decide, photo by photo and video by video, who gets to see what. I’d like to see that happening sooner rather than later, so that I can manage and continue to frame-switch between my college self, my post-college fun self, and my working world self.

Some people say that my dream of super-granular privacy settings is silly. If I want a professional profile, “It’s called LinkedIn.” But I don’t find LinkedIn nearly as fun as Facebook. I’m on Facebook every day, multiple times a day unless I’m rock climbing or on a camping trip. I check LinkedIn maybe twice a week. Facebook is just more addictive and more fun. Plus, does LinkedIn let you import your blog’s RSS feed and display your shared links from Google Reader? Didn’t think so.

Scoble asks, “Anyway, seriously, there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, is there? What you all trying to hide?!?”

I would prefer not to hide anything at all. And if I was sure that people wouldn’t judge me, I’d be happy to fling the doors wide open and be myself all the time in front of the whole wide world. But Robert, I say to you again that you’re not a woman. You don’t have to deal with the double standard when it comes to sexuality and professionalism. You don’t have to worry about creepy stalkers. You don’t have to be concerned that professional contacts will see you as a party girl or a lame ditz because you’re young and pretty and own a closet full of micro minis.

I’m smart, and I know it. But will potential employers, clients and colleagues really take the time to find that out once they see the photo of me on Facebook in my junior-year Halloween costume?

I wonder. And that’s what I’m trying to figure out.