Many times during my childhood, I would dream of becoming famous, getting interviewed, asked about my life, and have a legendary biography written about me. But I quickly gave up that dream when I realized that I have to be famous or do something phenomenal to be spotlighted amongst the 7 billion others on this planet. However times have changed. In our modern world, we don’t need to be famous to have a biography or to share our perspectives. Instead, we are constantly updating our biography on the virtual archive of the Internet.

Before the age of social media, there were only few modes of expressing oneself. Word of mouth was a dominant method for a while, along with writing letters and diaries, and keeping photo albums. These all can be alternatives for biographies, however often these life stories only reach people who are related to the autobiographical subject. Even with published autobiographies, it was only possible for the small handful of famous or lucky individuals to share their life stories to a larger audience. However with the emergence of social media and the increasingly equal access to the internet among all classes and races, it allows a chance for ordinary individuals to share their experiences with the global community. It allows individuals to express themselves freely without needing to be particularly famous. In fact, social media creates a space and an opportunity for individuals to be brought to attention. Jamal Edwards makes a greater claim in his TEDx, The Future of Democracy , saying that the “future of prime minister would be discovered on Youtube”. saying people can contribute regardless of their “class, race, or wealth.”

For instance, a major autobiographical site on the Internet is Facebook. As the “Timeline” system suggests, Facebook maps out all the events an individual has gone through since their membership with with the site. People post on pictures, statuses, and links to other sites because they want to ‘share’ their stories. They want other people to know about what they experienced and what their opinions are on certain topics. This in itself is an  biography; they are able to share their life with a mass spectator audience and thus in these ways, our Facebook profile acts as an autobiography.

Although there are countless critics of social media and the dangerous power of the Internet  (e.g. Eli Pariser on his TEDTalk, Beware online “filter bubbles” ) and the issues of loss of privacy due to its savvy system, I personally believe that we should not be critiquing the technologists who planned out this system. Instead the users are ultimately the ones who make the decision and are conscious of what we want to post and send and make it public to share to the rest of the global community. Therefore, I believe that social networking sites are the ideal place for people to want to document their lives, and are place for autobiographies.