Here I am on Christmas Day apparently pouring a dampers on your seasonal partying. Actually, no I’m not. What I am saying is that in an age where just about every cell phone has a camera and most young people have at least one social media account, it pays to be careful about what you say or do.
You see, in the good old, bad old days, when someone did something daft at a party, it was usually remembered with either painful embarrassment of fond humour by a select few. If anyone who witnessed the event did tell anyone else, those others would probably not mentally associate the event with the perpetrator or, if they did, would probably treat it like most other anecdotes and soon forget. Nowadays we have viral videos and things like Facebook walls.
Thus you can become famous or infamous overnight.
There is another issue too. As I’ve already said. Up until recently, moments of madness tended to be quickly forgotten – now they have an indefinite shelf life. It’s this dramatic difference that bothers me. You see, we’ve no idea where this is going to lead. What I do know is that many managers now use social media to do background checks on would-be employees therefore if there are photos of you mooning out of your car window, destroying public property, getting seen with the wrong people, behaving drunkenly, or making obscene gestures or lewd remarks, your chances of landing a top job are being wrecked.
It’s hard enough getting work at the moment without putting another obstacle between you and a job offer.
So, I’m not saying ‘Don’t have fun’ but I am urging you to always be cautious and stay on your guard. Don’t do totally daft things because someone (probably just as drunk) will want to film them for posterity. Once upon a time, the fellow party-goer’s camera would have been out of focus (I proved this to myself one drunken night a very long time ago at the cost of a few blurry slides). Now we have auto-focus, auto-exposure, and program mode. Even someone totally out of their tree can produce a clear photograph or piece of video footage. Not only that, it doesn’t cost anything so people are even more ‘snappy-happy’.
Yes, it probably is unreasonable to not be able to let your hair down without consequences. But I neither make the rules nor even know what the rules are. In the meantime it’s safest to say just make sure that your unforgettable Christmas party isn’t remembered for all the wrong reasons.
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