On the Internet

Ever since the Internet popped into existence, humanity has had a whole new world (pardon the Disney lyric) of opportunity open up to us – but also a new complex and thorny maze to navigate.

Now, I love the Internet. I love the way it enables you to connect with people you never would have encountered before. I love the platform it provides for creators of all shapes and forms to share their work with the world. I love the easy access to knowledge I would have struggled to gain before. And whilst I am not quite a child of the Internet in the way that mid-nineties babies are (growing up with WiFi and buttons on their phones that instantly plunge them into the online world), I don’t really remember a time without it – even when it meant waiting patiently for the dial-up connection to go through, and asking Jeeves instead of Google.

Much as I love the Internet, however, I will be the first to admit that it has turned us into a generation of snoopy stalkers. It’s so easy to dig up information now. Do it often enough, and you can become scarily good at it. I – in fact – have become scarily good at it. That’s not a popular thing to admit: that you have partaken in online snooping, much less that you’re actually quite a dab hand at it. I understand why, but this is a safe space and I’m all about honesty. So I hold my hand up as a skilled e-snooper.

Before you rush to judge me, bear in mind that a lot of the skills I have developed, I have actually developed because they serve me well professionally. I’m very good at sourcing footage for mood films, whether that’s “can you find me a shot of some people riding on public transport in Tokyo?” or “we need some footage of a woman looking sad whilst staring wistfully out to sea”. (Yes, my job can be quite niche). It’s also contributed to me being a helpful friend – a few months back, for example, a friend was searching for a particular weekly comic strip that was published in a national paper when he was young. He couldn’t remember the name of the strip, or the artist: he just had a vague recollection of the subject matter. Cue a quick Google, and a few minutes later I could give him full details of the strip and the artist in question.

I try not to abuse these skills too much, but it can be tempting: in the age of online dating, in particular. To give you an example, before I went on my one and only Tinder date experience (ask me for the story one day, if I haven’t told you already: it’s a good’un), I was feeling – I think understandably – quite nervous about meeting someone who could quite possibly have been a mad axe murderer. Mercifully though, I had a first name, a picture, and a profession to go on. It didn’t take long to get a bit more information and validate that this guy was in fact who he said he was, and – paranoid individual that I am – I made sure I gave my flatmate his surname and the lowdown on him before I went out. You know – just in case he did actually murder me with an axe…

Things like Jessie Cave (yes, the other one) and her series of Love Sick doodles reassure me that I’m not wrong to think my behaviour is quite common. But I don’t know whether I should take comfort from this. There’s a fine line between using e-snooping for work, or to safeguard against Tinder crazies…and sliding into the worrying quicksand of becoming a full-blown creeper. Whilst I’ve managed to maintain a safe distance from that behaviour (hopefully to the relief of those I know and love), the fact that it would be so easy to use my powers for evil makes me a bit concerned about the rest of our Internet-enabled society. Can we really trust others to draw the line where we do? Or are we destined to become a world of paranoid, nosey obsessives?

…I feel like it might be time to look at my privacy settings.