Editor's Note

4:00 am May 21 - by Tommy Trafton – buzz Editor in Chief

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It’s interesting hearing from people who only know you through a certain public lens. I’ve gotten some interesting e-mails in response to my editor’s notes, and it’s strange to hear their interpretation of me based solely on what I write. This made me realize how dishonest my writing can be. I admit it, not everything I’ve filled this space with has been completely true, and what I write may or may not be exactly who I am…(sorry for the creepy use of ellipses).

In a previous editor’s note, I mentioned watching Disney’s Robin Hood all the way through on YouTube. Of course, I got a desperate e-mail response from someone who has been trying to watch the whole film on YouTube as well but couldn’t find part five or six of the film. They begged me to tell them where to find the missing scenes. As it turns out, that part of the movie isn’t even posted on YouTube, meaning of course, that I never actually watched the whole thing online. It’s not that I lied, I just embellished things to prove my point. But I really got that person’s hopes up.

I’ve never really been the most public person. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could fill this space with the top 10 reasons why I’m not a fan of Of Montreal, how I got angry at a friend a couple weeks ago or why I recently changed my favorite color to purple from red. I could post my relationship status on Facebook, take the “what Pokemon is most like you?” quiz and post the results on everyone’s wall and update my location on Twitter every half hour so absolutely anyone can find me wherever I go.

But the fact that I’m most like a Charmander at Subway at noon according to Facebook and Twitter really doesn’t say a lot about me, and if someone made assumptions of who I am based on that, I’d hope they’d be confused if they actually got to know me in person.

Of course, this doesn’t justify my dishonest editor’s notes, but it’s interesting how strongly we rely on public spaces such as Facebook and blogs and whatnot as a means of getting to know people and even more concerning how easy it is to project a misrepresentation of oneself through these spaces.

In response to the Robin Hood fan, though, sorry for getting your hopes up. I’ll be more real from now on. Promise.

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