In the 90s, Justin Hall was a rich kid with distant parents and a need for attention. He fell in love with the Internet and started sharing intimate details of his life on his website, links.net. He was, maybe, the very first personal blogger, and paved the way for legions of people to share their own intimate details on Facebook on YouTube. He produced an autobiographical documentary in 2015.
overshare: the links.net story
Today, he is apparently in a committed relationship, with young kids, and he’s a cannabis entrepreneur because of course he is.
Hall’s philosophy of radical personal exhibitionism was commonplace in the 90s and early 2000s. I admired it but never participated myself, and now I’m glad I stayed away. These days, I try to be extremely active online in ways that don’t compromise my, and other people’s privacy.
I never participated in the radical transparency internet culture when that idea was popular, and now I’m far more careful about privacy than I used to be.
For example, a few weeks ago, a cousin shared a photo of my mother as a young woman, dressed up and looking pretty for a wedding. My Mom was older when she started a family, so this is really a view into another life for her.
I thought for a moment about sharing the photo online, but then decided, no, that one’s just for me and friends and family.