A Virtual Mask

Over one hundred years ago an Irish playwright by the name of Oscar Wilde voiced the famous words, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”  
While these words have, and I’m sure, always will be true of humankind, they have been given a new weight by the dawn of the Internet. This virtual mask has given society a sense of anonymity that grants courage to the before hidden thoughts.  
Sign on to Facebook and your senses will instantly be bombarded by the thoughts of your “friends”.  These thoughts are expressed by way of statuses, wall posts, instant  messages and comments.
You all know what I’m talking about.  You have that lady who posts catty threats over status, the girl who voices her heartbreak over a high-school breakup, that guy who rants about his boss and of course... that kid who’s every other status is: “im bored”.
The average Facebooker has over a hundred friends, sometimes over a thousand. Imagine for a moment, that all the people on your “friends list” are in an auditorium and you stand on the stage reading your statuses aloud to the crowd.  Would you have the courage? Would you even want to?  If you saw the faces of your co-workers and classmates, the face of your aunt, the face of your local priest, or the face of your twelve year old cousin, would you read on?
           The words that you write on that glowing screen are real words that are being read by real people.  Somehow we have convinced ourselves that because we can’t see whose reading our words that those people simply… don’t exist, that we are voicing our thoughts to some faceless, virtual void.
           Everything  you say will have an effect on those who read it, aka anyone with Internet access.  You are not speaking a faceless void, you are speaking to your world.


--Merwin