Historian Gray Click Here!

I don't know if you know this, but the Internet watches back. The successes of Anonymous are not your successes. Facebook users take note, not only is it near impossible to delete your account, but Facebook employees follow your clicking for fun. Even if you are unknown, you are not un-noted. This site uses Google Analytics to become analytically involved with our readership. (The average time on site is 10 minutes for an US reader, while not even a minute for a UK reader. How we can compete with Beat That Quote?)
As of now, we can take comfort, the eyes that stare back at us rarely focus in. You may be filmed as you neck in Central Park, but odds are no one will look at the tape unless a Terror strikes nearby. You may post a wacky comment on your Facebook crush after visiting their profile for the 50th time today, and while Facebook employees could giggle at this, they probably won't. But what about the historians.

I don't really sweat our blog's hits and stats. I post for my friends and family, as a personal record, and for my true love; the historian I sometimes imagine wafting through the gases of my web life. He is the hidden figure in the "generation me" equation --a name by the way which must go and is completely inadequate in describing the natural self-indulgence children born today will posses. But the web denizens of today and tomorrow will continue to dream of being noticed after they are dead, in some sort of 7-up induced fantasy.

But what will remain, and will anyone care? First, what will remain: from my experience, not a lot. This blog will be a collection of broken links and words that were arranged just to make room for the links in the first place. Will that dance with the mildest of restrictions be one day noticed as art? Does it satisfy Alan Moore's criteria of structure? Probably not. But if not as art, then as comforting history? Who knows? I've been online long enough to know that things don't last out here, at least not how you intended. But that doesn't mean no one will care.

To be honest, I'm not ready to say if my Historian of Tomorrow will ever find me. That's a prediction I'm not ready to make. But surely there are smaller things I can try my hand at. The futurists at the Long Now have been doing this for awhile. Kevin Kelly has a daring prediction on Long Bets that I'm not willing to disagree with:
“By 2060 the total population of humans on earth will be less than it is today.”
If you take into account what Stewart Brand says, it's hard to disagree.

But here's a prediction I've had kicking around in a notebook for awhile. But I'll put it into play now,

PREDICTION:
Within five years I will be able to buy a Killer Robot Nixon from the Futurama episode, A Head in the Polls.

WHY:
Eventually anything you want, will be available anyway you want it. As culture continues it's march into the physical world, expect more dolls, replicas, and garments from your favorite obscure tv show/movie/book/comic/blog post.