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Looks like a bunch of camels, huh? And it is, though maybe not exactly the way your eyes were telling you at first glance.
In case you can't read the small print in the picture (and if you can, I'm seriously impressed with you eyesight), here's what it says:
"This is a picture taken directly above these camels in the desert at sunset. It is considered one the best pictures of the year. Look closely, the camels are the little white lines in the picture. The black you see are just the shadows!"
Cool, huh? And it also makes you (and by "you" I mean "me") think. How much of what we "see" in other people is real?
Especially the people we see on the internet all the time. Do you ever wonder how much of their real selves your cyber buddies reveal online? Do they--intentionally or not--display some innate inner truth, or are they just pixel-ated cyber shadows?
My guess is, those of us who participate a lot in social media--whether it be through blogs, Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc.--show a lot more of ourselves than we might think, to people who read between the lines. But not everything.
People who know me online probably think of me as a wisecracking, camel-loving smartass who enjoys a good cocktail and has an aversion to cooking. Which isn't necessarily untrue, but trust me, there's a bit more to whole picture. I do have a serious side.
(Maybe even a dark side. Bwah-ha-hah! Wouldn't you like to know?)
It just doesn't happen to be what I choose to put on display for the world. Frankly, I'd rather make people laugh. (Which is probably revealing in its own way.)
How about you? Is your online persona the real you? The whole you? Nothing but the you?
Or are you a pixel-ated cyber shadow?
