Politics and the Destructive Power of the Internet

As scandalous story after scandalous story unfolds about politicians caught on camera in compromising situations, all I can think is how lucky the current thought leaders of our nation are. Most of their young adulthood, i.e. the time in life they were likely the wildest, was pre-internet, pre-commercialization of digital cameras, and pre-Facebook. The only way they would get pictures in digital format, and thus susceptible to the viral spread of Youtube videos, was if someone cared enough to scan and send them.

Our generation, on the other hand, was raised with .jpgs, not negatives, and emails, not letters. With the ease of sharing information, be it forwarding an email or clicking the "Upload to Facebook" button now ubiquitous on smartphones, who really knows how far their personal information has spread? A young parent uploads a picture of their newborn minutes after the birth, and thus begins the digital documentation of that child's life.

But think about how screwed we are. Media will do anything for a juicy story, and opponents will do anything to debunk you. But how vigilant can we be about the whereabouts of our information? Sure, you can block people from seeing your pictures on Facebook, and you can change your email password on a weekly basis if you want. But what about the other end? Who's to stop that vengeful ex-lover from spreading compromising pictures? Or that bitter colleague who you got promoted over from sharing out-of-context bits of conversation?

It doesn't even have to be that drastic, the simplest things can bring you down years later. Imagine you're in college, meet a friend of a friend in a bar, you each knock back a couple of drinks, and by the end of the night you're best friends and posing for pictures together. You go home and forget about this person. But 20 years later, when you're a successful lawyer and running for a state congressional seat, your opponent finds this old picture, and points out to the world that your "best friend" from college is now an active member of the US Communist Party, and there go your ratings. The most inconsequential acts can have catastrophic repercussions. It's a frightening thought, isn't it?


While Massachusetts voters have shown that posing nude for a Cosmo center-fold doesn't exclude you from senatorship, this is definitely an exception- nude photos and politicians generally don't go over well. My advice for all you aspiring politicians and world leaders: run the other way every time you see a camera.

Full-Fledged Philadelphian

Four months I’ve lived in Philadelphia. I’ve biked miles around, bar-hopped night after night, eaten at the finest and crappiest local diners, yet still I feel no connection to the city. The streets of Philly are devoid of sentiment, and the relationships formed there, though valuable, are ephemeral. This is partly due to the nature of my stay. I’m only here for nine months, why bother getting attached? However, I know I will regret it if I leave this city without ever having lived in it, so I’m making changes. No more looking back, no more yearning for home, no more dreaming of beaches.

After a soul-soothing month at home, I’m en route to Philly again, and the minute I land, I am a full-fledged Philadelphian. I will eat hoagies, hate the Yankees, put Cheez Whiz on everything, and ride my bike on the sidewalk. That is, if Penn leaves me with time to spare.

The Frat Boy, Dissected

Despite four years of partying alongside them, it is now, six months post-graduation, that I finally understand what defines a fraternity brother. Throughout college I threw around generalizations about "frat boys", most of them negative, without really understanding why this was the case. Only to add to my confusion, many of my best friends were in fraternities, yet displayed none of the characteristics assigned to their collective group. How could I love these guys so much individually, yet despise everything they stand for as a group?

Turns out the individual-to-group transition was the answer. Alone, a frat boy is merely a boy. Your lovable male friend. Put two together, and a sense of competition (be it in drinking, sports, sex, etc.) begins to creep in, creating a slow escalation of unhealthy and/or immoral habits, but they retain most of their individuality. At three, they egg each other on, and the competitive streak spikes as three individuals slowly blend into one entity. At four, critical mass is reached, and the group morphs into an unstoppable, self-destructive machine. Testosterone is raging, everything is a competition, and once a suggestion is made ("lets take 3 shots each!"), it will never be turned down for fear of looking weak. This pattern of behavioral change is most commonly seen in riots, and we call it mob mentality.

There we go, stereotypical "frat boys" are nothing more than normally civil, moral people subjected to mob mentality. And I can't blame them. I am no less susceptible to this behavioral change than any one of them. After only a week of cohabitation with fraternity brothers, I noticed obscenities creeping into my language, and felt myself reaching for beers at 2 pm, and that's without ever experiencing hazing. While I can't promise not to use the term "frat boy" disparagingly ever again, I will at least acknowledge that individually, most of them are fun, decent people.