Text by Emily Kellogg / Illustration by Veera Tolvanen

Putting your best face forward in the time of new media.

We’ve probably all heard the facebook cautionary tales. Someone adds their boss on facebook, and promptly forgets. After a night of drunken debauchery that Someone forgets that important little icon that pops up on their friend-list of at least over 100 acquaintances and friends from all walks of life. This imaginary ‘Someone’ is upset with something in the workplace and updates their status with something vastly insulting (e.g. the—imaginary, I swear—conversation between Katri and I) towards their boss and the company at large. And promptly, Someone, is out of a job.

This kind of exchange might seem to be obvious, common sense—if you have your boss added as a friend of facebook, don’t insult them on your status. (Don’t insult them on a mutual friend’s wall, either!) But, like it or not, we live in the changing landscape of an Internet age, and when you’re out there job-hunting, I think that there’s more to navigating these electronic channels of social networking than simply keeping insulting obscenities from the eyes of your boss.

Consider this anecdote. I’ll always remember when my boyfriend added me on facebook. It was a dreary winter’s day, and we’d just finished a casual coffee, our first time meeting in the flesh, after being casual coworkers with a relationship that was carried out strictly through email. I trudged home through grey slush, and back to my residence hall at my university. A friend request awaited me from my now-boyfriend, then-acquaintance, and I went through the customary motions of checking out this new person who wanted to add me to their electronic sphere of influence.

And I’m not going to lie, I was more than a little bit freaked out when I read over the text of the “About Me” section of the page, which read: “This profile creates "Rob Duffy" brand awareness and orientation. It is approved by the "Rob Duffy" brand.” I mean, it was a good thing that he was good-looking, otherwise the relationship clearly would have progressed no further. Who is this guy? I queried, who is he, and why would he possibly have to “brand” himself?

For a while, it actually drove me crazy. But, I started to think about it. Although the section is meant to be ironic, I think that Rob actually managed to stumble upon a little bit of wisdom in the joke. In a recent conversation, we started really talking about what it means to exist online. There seems to be more to the whole facebook thing than simply communicating with your friends. Your facebook page is the way that you present yourself to the world, it is your electronic face, or “personae”, a kind of first impression that you give to all of the new acquaintances who come into your life, whether it be in a professional or social life. And so if you’re looking at it that way, you really do want to put your best “electronic face forward.”

The stats support it; the older generation is infiltrating facebook at a steadily increasing rate. I for one, have a friend list that is complete with old teachers, colleagues, and even my grandmother—along with all of my friends from high school and university. Facebook seems to becoming less of a space to share inside jokes with your friends, and more of a public forum, where you have the capacity to present your best face forward to everyone who you’ve ever met in all walks of life—or to fall flat on it.

Looking at facebook as an extension of your own image, as an electronic representation of everything that you are, to be seen by the general public is almost daunting. And if you’re trying to sell yourself in a job-hunt, shouldn’t all of our facebook profiles be representations of ourselves at our top-notch levels of performance? Shouldn’t I, too, create an “Emily Kellogg” brand, and electronic persona?

When you’re trying to market yourself, and to network—it’s becoming increasingly important not to neglect the online channels of communication. Facebook creates risk, yes, but it also creates opportunities. Science and technology always gives us a service and a disservice. You are doomed to be in contact with all your old colleagues and classmates, yes, but at the same time, you have the opportunity to put your best electronic facet forward, and keep all of your contacts simultaneously reminded of the extraordinary and interesting things that you do with your life—or of all the bars that you go to, and the amount of times you show up to work hung over. Your choice, really.