The Whos Sell Out

Remember the 20th Century? Think hard. It was before YouTube, before American Idol even, before all of that. You were probably younger and had better skin tone.

The 20th Century began a long time ago, and a lot of great things wouldn’t've happened without it. One of the the more interesting things that can trace it’s ancestry to the the time is anonymity, a state that no century before shared.

Anonymity didn’t always exist, but many people in the early part of the 20th Century grew quite used to it, and it was embraced. Whole cities were built around the idea. It spread.

The century went on like this for some years, and the Internet came along. The Internet and anonymity went together like cellphones and Twitpic. Both flourished as handles were registered and Geocities populated. Be who you want to be! Or be your undisclosed self if you want. Join some group of like-minded recluses bound by common interest, without people knowing that you live in a big city or a big commune, whether you’re a high school teacher during the day or just high.

As the Internet grew, though, it betrayed anonymity. With that the 20th Century was all but over.

It only takes about 33 bits of information (entropy!) to identify an individual online, experts say. The first few bits are easy enough, you may have to work to make them not automatically available. Internet users are increasingly transmitting freely the medium-difficulty bits, via cookies and cross-logins and browser info. With the Web stressing “social,” our culpability in the death of anonymity is obvious.

Our increased comfort with sharing identifying information online is a large part of it, but that’s the kind of thing that only worries olds. Technology is the part that can seem scary and invasive. Hey, why don’t we write Greasemonkey scripts linking the People of Wal-Mart to their Facebook profiles, or let’s make a FriendFeedesque site that automatically aggregates all your accounts (including your cached Xanga) without your opt-in. If it’s possible and easy, it’ll happen. It’s getting easier.

Our increased willingness to share our identity on the Internet and the Internet’s increased ability to aggregate this information, cross-reference it with surfing trends and pattern recognition to spit out whole people is changing the Internet. Post-anonymity,

The Internet will be less voyeuristic. People will be much less likely to post their deepest darkest whatever or their most embarrassing XYZ when it’s obvious it’ll be around forever, tagged, optimized and with a share button. People will also be less likely to make fun of random people when the identities of all parties are known, shown and linked back to your work profile. So goodbye People of Wal-Mart (thank god), goodbye Look at this Fucking Hipster and even Overheard in D.C.

It will be a medium for social reinforcement. Instead of a place where teenagers and deviants and teenage deviants hang out (I came up during this time of the Internet, it was scary/wonderful), the Internet has become a place where grandmas and marketers congregate and exchange the currencies of grandmommery and marketry. And guess what, the world is only producing more Internet-addled grandmas and marketers. When these people find you online they will do what we do in the real world: reward you for actions that they approve of and criticize actions they don’t. You’ll do likewise, and the same power dynamics that exist in your house or your school or your work will translate easily and fully to the Internet.

The Web becomes more relevant to real life. Social graphs and social graphing calculators are already calling on APIs at all hours of the day, and are no longer the next big thing. This point steps into the wrong side of my “don’t be trite” rule, but. The Internet of 2010 already is miles more personalized than 2008, and as anonymity passes there is no reason the trend won’t accelerate. The Internet you will find most easy to use and most useful will be the one that gives you what you like, what people you like like, and what people who like what you and your friends like like. You will like this! But it’s not all roses…

The Internet will cease to be a tool of discovery. When you’re only being shown what you will like, the real world becomes your most trusted outlet for discovery. This plays right into the hand of the real-world lobby (“Surprise Yourself! Go Outside!”) and leaves Internet advocates pining for the days when the Internet could be used to find something completely novel, something not crowdsourced or shared or otherwise vetted, happy accidents. In a post-anonymous Internet, we’ll ask, “Would you even want to take that chance?”

The post-anonymity Internet will continue to have tons of great information on it, how could it not. Those of us who don’t already will begin to live our lives on it. Those of us who have lived our lives on the Internet in front of a computer will find that “my life on the Internet” actually includes more and more interacting with the Internet in places without a computer. But without anonymity, what are you willing to post online? Where are you willing to visit (PhillipHerndon.com?)?

Social pressures search advancements are retarding the free-wheeling no-holds-barred say-what-I-wanna life the Internet’s seemed to be nurturing the past 15 years. The public anonymous Web is on its last legs. Press “Like” below to share this article with your friends.