Alain de Botton recently spat the dummy over a very important review of his latest book. Only his coments turned out to be not as private as he’d hoped, and now everyone vaguely interested is glued wide-eyed to the fallout.

Everyone has been in this position at some point in their life, and it will get worse due to the fact that people are expected to share their facebook with all their co-workers/bosses/partners/ex-partners/children/parents.

Previously the internet had been a place where you could create an image of who you were, not necessarily fake, but controlled, the way we don’t put bad photos of ourselves online. This was no different to real life where you choose what you say at work, or to certain friends – you don’t confide everything with them.

Now the line is blurred and we are expected to share everything. our closest confidants we may be communicating to through our blog posts or tweets, rather than the recently devalued (though much more private) email or phone call. We may say in our FB status “god i’m bored, i really hate this job” and some old friend who knows one of your co-workers could pass this along until your boss hears it and you’re hauled into their office ‘for a chat’.

The astonishing thing isn’t that people in the public eye are being caught in this trap. In the past there was a brick wall between the vaguely famous and the public, but the supposed power of the grapevine has drawn many out from that cover, pulled them off their pedestal to a degree, so they’re in the same mess we’re in. The astonishing thing is that Alain de Botton hasn’t written a book about it yet: The erasing of the public and private persona… what is left of us?

You can find my twitter at: http://twitter.com/lushr
(atleast I have more control there, than on facebook of this persona)

i’ll be making a couple of posts today, while I watch SBS play the same four ads for greenhouse gas, Mythbusters, Heineken and Honda over and over for thiirty minutes… seems to be a glitch… makes you wonder about the ads that have corrupted – cars and beer (playing an awesome glitchy rythmic sound over snowy green visuals)… maybe SBS has been hacked?

Anyway books.

I wrote last time how i was annoyed about the materiality of song lyrics etc… well Alain de Botton landed in my life recently through a friends recommendation and a very cheap Penguin book Consolations of Philosophy and i find myself reading about Socrates, Seneca, Epicureus and so on. And I think a bit of critical thouhgt is just what i needed. It’s made me think about why i bought the clothes I bought recently and pointed out to me just how much i DON’T buy into mainstream pressures, and maybe that’s a good thing. Also I don’t completely agree with the picture Alain describes of the world, I can’t help but think the privileged life he’s lead still hasn’t communicated to him what it’s like to have no hope, something which the middle classes may not suffer, but those in poverty certainly do. Poverty isn’t all sunshine, hard work and loaves of bread, buddy.

Anyway in response to this intellectual void i’ve suddenly noticed, I got myself more meatier reads (to go with the Jasper Fforde books I still didn’t own) such as Blubberland and The Great Feminist Denial.

The latter has a hilarious book cover which says everything I want it to. Even more when you compare the American cover with the pinched waist to the original UK/Australian cover. Just in case you were wondering if the book title was justified.