The thing is, it's my boss doing the hiring. Eventually, it will be me, more schooled in the social network thang, but also more jaded. And while I might be more forgiving of what I find than my current boss, eventually it will be their peers. And will they be so ready to write off the teenage postings?

Honestly, just start over with college. And then again at maybe 25. Or whenever you start worrying about employability.

...given that it's relatively easy to manage your online presence...it seems really stupid not to.

And yet so many don't.

I can't even persuade my 13-year old cousin or her parents to hide their dates of birth on FB. They nod and smile when I bring it up, but they don't do it.

I'm glad that all my crazy posting happened in poorly photocopied punk rock zines back in the day.

We even got a good review in maximum rocknroll back when Kathleen Hanna was still in Bikini Kill and chicks were scrawling RAPE on their abs at queercore shows.

Dear god I am old.

Honestly, just start over with college. And then again at maybe 25. Or whenever you start worrying about employability.

I think that this seems like an overreaction.

If I told you that you had to delete everything here every 4 years to start over, in order to remain employable, you'd probably think that you had enough cover that it isn't necessary. Or that it's too extreme. I'd agree.

And if someone were to say that to me, I'd be offended, as if you want me to always be a tabla rasa in a way that erases my history.

What is more troubling for me about Allyson's cousin is not that she posts this shit and needs to lock it down, but that she feels compelled to come across as a bimbo instead of intelligent. That need to downplay actual aptitude that teen girls sometimes feel is just fucking depressing.

she feels compelled to come across as a bimbo instead of intelligent

I don't know how to begin with that part. She thinks she's just expressing herself honestly. But she isn't. She expressing what she thinks is sexy and edgy to other people. However, most of the equally dumbass-sounding friends on her wall have been congratulating her on her last academic success. So they all seem to know that she's bright, academically.

I'm speaking for myself. I wouldn't want my teen journals (god, can't yet bear to read them) or interactions public when I applied for college. Nor most of the angst of the years leading up to getting my first job. Hell, I wish I'd kept the next decade more private. I won't retract any of it, I'll own up, but. I left a lot more out than I see my teen sharing.

Allyson, I am having clarity issues. Wanting to put up a front of edginess based on sex and drugs is something I see way too often with my students, so I guess I meant the bimbo comment as what I see with them.

It kills me that I'll have NHS students and AP students, mostly girls, trying to create an image of rampant sexuality and drug abuse as a way to take the "stink" of academic achievement off of them.

And I am sure I was guilty of it too in high school: look! I can be a valedictorian AND promiscuous! But now it always makes me sad.

I am VERY GLAD that social media wasn't around in college. Not because I think I would have been posting pictures of me flashing my tits, but I certainly did a lot of crazy, illegal shit BITD, and there were sometimes a lot of people around.

Camera phones, Twitter, FB...shudder.

And Kat, I get your point. I really do. But I was teaching at a school with a huge gang population, not wanna-bes, but the real deal, and students would show me their MySpace page -- do you want to see my dog or my new baby sister? Sure, yes! -- and they would log in, and their profile pic is them and a bunch of kids I recognize, standing around with Bacardi bottles,, blunts and AK's and handguns.

This is NOT every student, I know, but it was still...worrisome, in so many way.

After happening twice, I was like, sorry, you can show me a camera phone shot of your dog or sister, but you can't show me shit on MySpace, because I am a mandated reporter, and plus, I don't want that shit on my teacher computer.

This was when MySpace was the thing.