the soupmenu

anyone else remember that episode of doug? It was my favorite. I’m always a sucker for the story of the new guy in town.

I got my haircut. Actually…that’s a gross understatement. There should be a better word for my experience as I have never had anyone do anything to my skull for an hour and a half.

I do not have difficult hair, I do not require a challenging cut, yet my wonderful hairdresser spent a full hour and a half chopping away at my hair like it was the amazon. She was a nice Iranian woman who moved to amsterdam illegally 8 years ago and now had her own hair parlor. Once she found out I was American, she spent 20 minutes explaining to me why she loves George W Bush. After 5 years of approval ratings under 50%, It’s kind of shocking to actually talk to someone who LOVES bush. She said that she wished america would go to iran next.

perhaps if bush could do three terms

Profile, profiles, profiles. Sure, the current state of the web is quite functional and has sooo many useful tools. Of course every single last one of them has account profiles. There are solid reasons for implementing them, but after you type ‘I like all kinds of music’ 17 times, you stop to care so much. An interesting byproduct, though, is the concept of the online identity. While much of the early stages of the internet were built upon anonymity, the web today is all about identity.

Just like your true identity, people go through exhausting levels of effort to control their personal identity. Clothes shopping, personal grooming, and hanging with the right crowd in the real world equates to posting funny yet-hot pictures of yourself, commenting inside jokes that are deliberately phrased to show that you are part of an exclusive club, and full ‘top 8’ dynamics theory.

This online identity brings a slew of new internal emotions. When a person looks at their own profile…What do they like about it? What do they wish was different? Have they considered lying about it? What areas of life are they highlighting (bragging about)? Do they only want people to see their hottest friends or their most successful friends? Do they feel proud when their friends are active posters/taggers/commenters? I could go on for years.

All of the major sites right now track the usage stats of everyone, but the research that I would love to see is the sociological and psychological aspects of this new 100% synthetic identity. Sure in real life we can do many things to control our identity, but there always is that pesky ‘reality’ thing where after a few too many drinks, you tend to control your image as well as britney. Online we have the power to become our own personal god, taking 7 days to build the perfect online identity that of course is smart, witty, successful, yet still slightly dangerous.

Now I must leave. I have a few comments about gutter to post on dr. fantastic’s facebook wall.

I decide to get some fries after work. I bike to a cute little patat shop next to a church.

Me – Hi, patat met currysause alstublieft
Shop owner – I’m done for the day
Me – awe… when do you close ?
Shop owner – 5…yah…we dutch aren’t like you and don’t work as hard for a living
Me – but I work for a dutch company, and that’s why I wasn’t here earlier!
Shop owner – where are you from though
Me – states
Shop owner – yah…doesn’t everyone work 60 hrs a week there
Me – yes and no, some of my friends do, but I refuse
Shop owner – good…that’s not life
Me – I know
Shop owner – is it really that hard to make enough money to survive there?
Me – not at all, people just work that hard to try to get ahead to try to get a bigger house and such.
Shop owner – that’s silly. I will never understand that.
Me – it’s just the way people are…keeping up with the jones’
Shop owner – well we don’t do that here…life is about one thing…
Me – yah?
Shop owner – love

A patat shop that serves fries with a side of life lessons…makes me smile.