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open bookThanks to the foresight of our shadowy overlord Mark "Privacy?" Zuckerberg, online privacy has been shattered to a million pieces. Yada Yada Yada. I'm sure you've read all the reports about what is going on with Facebook and their privacy SNAFU.

And by now you may have heard of Openbook, a website that allows you to search people's status updates. It's true! A search of my own name indicated that I was dating Natalie Portman, something that is in no way true but I'm thankful for nonetheless. Other searches, however, yield some more interesting results.

Urlesque is a family website, although, lets not kid ourselves, one should put whatever cruel set of words one would like into that search box on Openbook. How about "DUI"? And now you have well over 50 peoples lamenting about their DUIs. How about "Hate + boss"? And now there are countless people's faces forever linked to hating their bosses, their names and information broadcast all over the internet for all to see.

I advise you to search that little search box for all its worth and thus have a better understanding about the rest of the waking world. For every 14 year old girl that apparently hates minorities, there are at least eleven guys in Affliction shirts who lament about driving under the influences. It makes you wonder if they will ever meet each other in real life. Outside of our big-city bubbles, this is a snapshot of American life in a way that Garrison Keillor would have never intended.

The point being that you, the social media cool cat, can now feel better about yourself for:

  • Being able to spell!
  • Being able to control your own privacy settings.
  • And, most importantly, laugh at others!

It's democracy at it's finest, at least until Facebook finds this loophole in its privacy settings and closes it.