Okay, everyone, I have a confession
to make. I—Aaron Kreider—am a registered homosexual. *Gasps* I know, it came as
a shock to me too. Not really, I’ve known for a pretty long time. In fact, I’m
not coming out with this post. I’ve been out of the closet for about a year or
so. But the reason I say I am now officially a registered homosexual is
because of the literal gay registry that floods college campuses and cities
alike: Grindr. That’s right, I finally have a Grindr account. For those of you
who don’t know what Grindr is, it’s most simply described as Tinder but for
gays. Gay people can use Tinder, too; but Grindr is exclusively for queer men.
The biggest difference between the two, however, is you don’t have to ‘match’
with someone on Grindr. You just see the people that are closest to you that
also have a Grindr account.
Now for my account, I put a nice
picture of me smiling and a small description: I like Netflix, going outdoors,
and swimming. But compared to most of the accounts on Grindr, my account is a
stark contrast. There are so many profiles that either don’t have a photo or
the photo is just of a naked torso. At first, I was so confused as to why
someone wouldn’t want to present himself in the most accurate way the confines
of the app would allow. But then I remembered what we talked about in class. The
way the Internet has impacted our forms
of socialization and the implications that can have. The biggest impact
that socialization has had is the availability of anonymity on the Internet. On the Internet, you can be anyone. I’m
reminded of the famous comic, “On the internet, no one knows you’re actually a
dog.” It’s funny, but rings with a lot of truth. With the availability of anonymity, you have to option to
present yourself as anyone you want to be.
As we’ve seen with shows like Catfish, we actually see that it happens
a lot more than we think it does. People use anonymity to their advantage or to
just straight up trick
people. (I highly suggest reading that article). This just further proves
that people use these tools to their advantage to be whomever the wish. In my
opinion, misrepresenting yourself is lying. And lying is bad. But I’d love to
know what ya’ll think. Is this aspect of anonymity a good thing that allows us
even more freedom? Or is it a way to lie and potentially hurt or fool other people?
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