I have never once wanted to get a tattoo. It isn't because I don't like them or judge anyone who chooses to get one, I actually think a lot of them are really cool and sentimental. The true reason why I would never get one is because of the fear I have that I will one day regret what I have chosen to put on my body forever or that the message will no longer be relevant to me. I have just realized, after watching Juan Enriquez's Ted Talk, Your online life, permanent as a tattoo, that this fear has already become reality.
He speaks about the concept of "electronic tattoos." These are the pieces of ourselves we have all over the internet. The parts of us that our friends, followers, reviewers, etc also help in contributing to. Facial recognition technology has become all too real and all too effective. It is not just a fun way for your camera roll to point out which friends are in multiple pictures, it is also a tool for anyone to locate who you are. Face.com was a website that had already collected dates on more than 18 billion faces. It gets crazier though, because Facebook bought face.com on June 12th, 2012. Facebook may use it to point out suggestions of where your friends are in pictures, but this same software and pool of data can be used to recognize even those you do not know and vice versa. Once the face is detected, so is the life behind the face- including anything from home towns to criminal records. The idea of electronic tattoos threatens to make us immortal, as this only presence will far outlast us. But then I ask, what will be my online presence that outlives me? Have I already posted things that will contribute to it that I did not mean or no longer think? Are there already parts of this tattoo I did not think through enough that I wish I could have removed? This idea of immortality through electronic tattoos is like a legacy we cannot fully control the direction of. It is terrifying.
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