Public Relations Consultant to....... Myself.

I must get asked four times a week on average just what it is I’m doing with my life, and what it is I would like to do. Like a robot with an automated message, I now just respond without thinking; “I’m a post-graduate student at Centennial College, enrolled in the Corporate Communications and Public Relations program.” Wow, I even zoned out when typing that. Instinctive. They will usually stare at me for two to three seconds after this obligatory answer, waiting for more. Half- conscious by this point and no longer responding solely through muscle-memory, I’ll tell them that I didn’t have any real experience in the field before I entered the program, or something to that effect. I’m lying. What I mean is that I didn’t have experience working in PR for someone else. But actually working in PR? Hell, I’ve been serving as a consultant to myself for years. Let’s not kid ourselves; we all have.

When I was younger, establishing my “brand” or personal image meant battling my mother to the death not to wear those farmer’s overalls she thought were so adorable on me in grade six. Other than that, depending how many jokes I told in class or how many goals I scored in soccer at recess, others’ viewpoint on Adam Amato (outside of my best friends) was probably set. The same was true for everyone else I went to school with. This continued on through middle school, high school, and half of university. Then some smartass invented Facebook.

I fought hard not to join this social media (huh)? website, giving in after two months of prodding by a good friend who was addicted. Ironically enough, he quit the thing three years ago and never came back, leaving me to feed the habit on my own. At first I would add a few old friends from elementary school, catch up on what had been happening with each other. I had a collection of about six pictures on my profile, only uploaded because I had nowhere else to put them and figured my computer would crash one day and wipe them all out. Then a year went by. That cute girl I had a crush on in English class added me. Old sports rivals somehow tracked me down and did the same. Within the year, I was smack in the middle of the media mosh pit, throwing ‘bows with everyone else. This was my first taste of public relations.

People started advertising themselves and their accomplishments; check my business out here, just won a scholarship there, pictures of my new Range Rover up soon! Then there were the personal pictures. The black and whites, the faux photo shoots, the cleverly inserted pictures beside a resident hottie in each album. People were no longer just joining social media to be social, to catch up with those they used to know or keep in touch with new friends. No, the idea was now self promotion. And it worked.

And who was I not to keep up? If I went out with some friends and pictures were taken, I’d put them up. Something happened the night before that I didn’t want to forget? I’d write on a buddy’s wall quoting it. I was teetering on the brink of teenage girl-type socializing, and yet I couldn’t seem to stop. Why couldn’t I call my friends like I used to? Keep pictures in a personal photo album at home? Well shit, I would think to myself. Do I want to look like the only guy that isn’t going to these parties, even though I was actually there? I have friends! We do funny things! People need to know this!

So that’s what Facebook came to be. It was Adam Amato, personified online. Yet it wasn’t me. It never could be. It’s a caricature of myself, much like it’s a caricature of everyone else. The stupid videos I post, the music I put up on my wall, yeah, it’s something I have an interest in, it’s the same music I play in my car when I’m driving with no one else around. Yet I’m so much more in person than a status update about my weekend. The girl I used to know in university who checks up on my profile and sees I’ve been to the cottage and reads a friend’s post on my wall about a stupid joke I made doesn’t remember what it’s like to sit with me one-on-one, to get a coffee and actually speak about real things I might not want the 600+ friends on my account to hear. She remembers my latest profile picture, and slowly those memories start to erode her actual memories of me. But I’m not Adam Amato plus the enter key. There’s a hell of a lot more to me than that.

And yet in many ways, it is my (our) only way to keep in touch with those who no longer play the same roles in our lives. So we update it. We advise ourselves on whether or not that drunken picture is the best thing for your boss to see online, or whether you look good enough in that picture for your old crush to look at and say, “dammmn.” Some of us go too far, and you can check out my pal Natalie Berardi’s blog on the sins of Facebook for examples of that. Yet we make these decisions almost every day, doing the best we can to promote the image of ourselves (real or imagined) to those who care to look. Twitter’s joined the party now, but with 140 characters available to tell people what colour shoes you’re wearing today, its limits are reached far before one can truly establish themselves as an entity to the public.

Some of you may read the above and say to yourself, “Okay, maybe this guy gets it.” You may even click to my Facebook profile expecting a minimalist page. You won’t get one. In fact, from the moment I wrote the first sentence of this blog post to the moment I typed the current sentence you’re reading, I have watched three different videos that friends posted on Facebook, sent another to a friend of mine, (on his wall where others will see it), commented twice on someone else’s photo, and wished two friends whose phone numbers I have happy birthday on their walls. Oh, and I changed my own profile picture. Hell, the only reason you’re reading this blog right now is because I posted it onto my page.

But hey, I go to school for PR. This is just me getting experience.