To anyone who had a MySpace/LiveJournal/any kind of pre-Facebook social media:

Hey, it’s me: early 2000’s you. Teenage You.  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzuuuup?!  Haha!  Current!

Look, I am here to tell you that I still exist—in a big way.  Remember when you went through your weird blogging phase?  I live in that!  And guess what?  People can Google that!* Therefore, please allow me to make a point using all capitals** to drive this home:  YOU ARE ON THE GRID.

You are on the grid. LOL!  Hilarious!  We are so well represented on our MySpace.  JK, no, we are not.  We come off terrible: a terrible, grammatically challenged teen mess.

And oh man, do we have opinions. I’m not saying we’re always wrong, or that we should be ashamed of the journey we took to become who we are.  I am, however, saying that if someone were to Google* how we feel about, let’s say, gun control, you’d want something coherent and well thought out to appear on the screen.  At present, such a query leads to this gem: “oMg WaTcHed BoWliNg for CoLaMbInE.  sO sAd. RiP.  I HaTe GuNs. UnGhHhH.”

So here’s what you’re going to do: you are going to clean up your web presence.  Delete me or lock me, whatever you’d rather; just make sure that prospective employers, dates, and friends can’t stumble upon me and read all about how Dashboard Confessional is the greatest.  Or about how we really hope we lose our virginity this summer at improv camp.  Or that entry titled, “Ungh, MOM GET OUT OF MY ROOOOOM.”

We are better than this.

TTYL,
Teenage You

*Not me, though. I still use “Dog Pile” as my search engine of choice.
**Because on MSN Messenger, caps lock means that people are serious. Like when Chad told me he wasn’t in like with me anymore.