Google me: Can I get a witness?

I was wondering if my other blog showed up when someone might Google me. Under “images,” these are the ones that popped up.

When you Google me--this is what you get.

I’m the one in the middle. NOT my favorite photo by any measure, the smile doesn’t seem as genuine as I like, and I have on the dark corporate blazer thing–no accessories at all. My eyes look beady and criminal. Dull. No wait, I don’t look so very bad with shifty beady eyes–or at least, it could be a lot worse. Interesting grouping, though, don’t you think?

I cannot understand how such an arrangement could happen. But then I watched this talk at Ted.com recommended to me by my friend Trish–the talk is by Eli Pariser: “Beware Online ‘Filter Bubbles.'”

"Beware Filter Bubbles" from Eli Pariser

You must watch this talk about invisible editing of the web to filter information that is tailored to your search result. Google and Facebook personalization… different people get different things, so the internet believed the people I was linked with are these folks in this particular filter bubble. Kinky.

Good lesson on how we request and share information from or of the interweb/cybersphere and beyond–it’s a question of convenience, perhaps, but whose convenience? Transparency is the thing  we need to help us learn and grow from the experiences of many.

Rhetorical savvy isn’t just about what we are creating on line for our readers, for ourselves, it’s also about what the life of the text (or image) takes on after it leaves us and lands in the hands of strangers. Or how it takes flight. Watch something with rhetorical velocity take off.

Then, duck.

Daffy Duck (free for personal use)