Some people want to be found. Others don’t. Those of us who are curious shade into those who are frustrated when we can’t find someone. People have been around for a relatively long time now, and we’ve been giving each other names because “hey you” only goes so far. Even so, unique names are rare since, it seems, the majority of European-derived folk had something to do with smithies. Nevertheless, the internet offers to help us find people. I was searching for someone the other day but that person, despite publishing nearly daily on the interwebs, has a very common name. And he styles himself without even a middle initial. (He may not have one, I know.) The point is, perhaps he doesn’t want to be found. I run into authors like this—they assume their high-level monograph is sufficient fame. You can’t find them online.
I recently joined Bluesky. I’d like to leave Twitter, but I still have a large number of followers there (for me), although they seldom interact. Publishers look at things like the number of X followers you have, so until Bluesky surpasses Twit, I’ll need to keep both going. On Bluesky more people introduce themselves to you. At least when you’re new. Not a few are looking for relationships, sometimes of the sexual kind. (I find that occasionally on what is called X, but mostly in the account under my fiction-writing pseudonym.) These are people who want to be found. The internet, strangely enough, has driven us further apart.
America has always been a polarized place, but the web has sharpened the border. Indeed, it has militarized it. I remember the days when meeting people actually meant going outside and stopping somewhere else. Society had rules then. Two topics of forbidden discussion were religion and politics. It was easier to make friends with those rules in place. Since I’ve chosen to put myself out there on the web, my choice of field of study does tend to come out. And it’s one of those two forbidden topics. Since my career goal has occasionally been ministry (still is from time to time), putting religion into the equation is inevitable, for those who really want to get to know me. Social media is a strange country, however. I tell new conversationalists on Bluesky that I have a blog, but it doesn’t seem to lead many people to my dusty corner of the interweb. And it still gets me no closer to finding that guy with the tragically common sobriquet. He may not want to be found.
