The Dilemma of Online Footprint
Online footprint and how people deal with it is definitely one of the scariest things that is occurring in the real time. My main issue with the the phenomenon is the way people approach it as they tend to isolate it out of context of time and not just casually do it, but also wepeanize the certain content to damage the individuals related to it. I'll use two new instances that caught my attention recently. The first one is the controversy surrounding Youtube fame Anthony Fantano (TheNeedleDrop) whose older clips resurfaces on the internet where he used N-word or made some edgy jokes about the black community. While there's definitely no way to defend this actions and use of certain language by a white man, this criticism should happen within the context of time and also the actual frame of the story. Fantano used to have an edgy trolling-based 2016-ish alter-ego which was never a serious account and the main point of it was to mock the foolish online content and trending memes. While I still believe that sometimes the tools shouldn't define the process or the point, and Fantano's situation is one of those, I still don't think this type of humor was something strange during that era of Youtube. Fantano like many edgelords of that period went through the process of self-reflection and same as George Kusunoki Miller who retired his "Filthy Frank" and "Pink Guy" personas and turned to "Joji" singing emo ballads, Fantano deleted his "thatistheplan" account and maintained his "The Internet's Busiest Music Nerd" status and proceed to become one of the more influential music figures on social media. Fantano himself adrressed the N-word controversies many times before, most famous one around 2016 when The Fader magazine called him out, but while it's frustrating to see the same controversy time and time again, the presence of online footprint and short-term memory of the netizens maintain the cycle of cancellation-uncancellation of the more public figures.
The second instance is related to an Iranian twitter account called "Hafezeh Tarikhi / Historical Memory" which post old content related to social events, politicians or artists showing their change of ideology or past comments to highlight their inconsistency or sudden change. While the core concept of an account like this is admirable to neutralize the abysmal propaganda, the platform itself is immune to become another propaganda machine for a certain political party or ideology. In case of Hafezeh Tarikhi, unfortunately it turned to an ultra right wing and pro monarchy platform only showing this ideological inconsistency related to people close to the current regime and ignoring many new current monarchists who used to work for the Islamic Republic or had different past ideologies. This apporoach turned this account to an obvious smear campaign against any individual who ain't a monarchist and in my belief, it killed the idea of having a reliable lie detector that can be beneficial for the people and not just a tool for mass manipulation.
Also it's important to understand that people's opinion mostly is not the same throughout their lifetime. They make mistakes and might take a side with a view that in long-term shows it's deficiency and that's why it's important to consider the context of time and related environment. In case of Fantano I can see how he turned from that online troll to a respectable influencer who defend Palestinians and speak against Trump's horrendous administration and actions that for me can serve as a positive shift in his personality. At the same time, I believe people can change and while this change sometimes might be a way to escape from answering about their past mistakes, if the change is genuine you can still recognize from their actions. While the online footprint of the people made it easier for us to confront their previous self in a more naked means, we still should care more about our manner of framing and its discourse.