A Family that Keeps Secret from Each Other, Stays Together
Click, click, click. I heard the sound of the mouse from the room across the hall. A door opened and I heard footsteps… getting softer, getting farther. I heard the screen door open and slam back. No one knows I was listening from my room. The gate swung open and I heard the lock click. I opened my door a bit, peaked through the crack and checked if the coast was clear.
“My brother just left the house… I could go on Facebook now!”
I got out of my room and the door slammed behind me as I excitedly ran to his room as fast as I could. I needed to make the most of the time he’d gone so I could use “his” computer.
It was not his computer. It was ours. It just so happened to be in his room so he assumed it’s his. With that, you would already know that he did not let me use it, which is exactly why I would wait for him to leave and then use it. You see, the dynamic of the whole media use thing in my family primarily revolved around me and my brother’s relationship with each other. My parents were there to fill me with fear and anxiety about the online world, but it was my brother who had dictated my media use, or the lack thereof.
I ran into my brother’s room and stumbled upon the computer still on. It made it easier for me to use it since I didn’t have to boot it up and turn it back off. All his windows were still open so I needed to remember what he had on his screen or else I would get busted. I left my his door wide open so I can hear him unlock the gate when he comes back.
He always used Mozilla Firefox. I always had to use a different browser because I normally didn’t have enough time to clear my browser history, close my windows and put the screen back to where it was before leaving the room. I had to remember exactly where the cursor would be placed or what tab was active. I had to remember how everything in the room was placed to — the chair, the mouse, every little thing he had on the computer table. I had to make sure I would completely clean up my tracks.
My brother used to act like he was a parent. I knew parents were usually afraid of their kids using the Internet because they don’t know what is going on there, so they do things to eliminate their access. This was what my brother would do. I just didn’t understand why he would be afraid when he uses the Internet too and knows what it’s all about.
I was just clicking through Facebook. I don’t even know if my family knew if I had a Facebook during that time. I kept a lot of secrets from them. My parents didn’t have a Facebook so I’m not worried they’ll see that. They barely even know how to use a computer. My brother, though, obviously knows how to so I blocked him on Facebook a long time ago, no biggie. I was kind of worried that other relatives would find me and tell my family that I use Facebook. To keep my identity away from these people, I spelled my name differently and used my middle name as opposed to my last name. I tried to keep my life a secret from my family, especially from my brother who actually knew what he was doing.
I tried to get comfortable in his chair as I browsed online. I was really nervous that my brother would catch me. I was trying so hard for them not to catch me online, so I had to do the same in real life. I was always afraid that my brother would find out about how I talk about boys and other teenage stuff online. He was probably the only person in my family who can actually find my secret Internet life. I used to always think that he had some secret Internet life that I could possibly find out about too…
I continued to browse through Facebook. As I scrolled through people’s lives, liked a few photos and played some of the online games. I got really bored with that and started looking through the files on the computer. I looked through a few things and stumbled on a few folders arranged like Russian dolls. I saw an image that seemed like it was screenshots at different moments of a video. It was a small image so I could not really tell what it was. It seemed like a girl. I zoomed in on this photo.
“Oh my gosh…”
It was a naked girl; it was screenshots from a porn video. I hurriedly close that window out of shock.
Clink! That was the gate’s lock opening… the sound I was always afraid to hear. All I thought in that moment was,
“I better get out of here or else, well I’m screwed.”
I quickly tried to erase all evidence of my presence in his room. I clicked on the menus of Internet Explorer to clear my browser history, in case he actually checked. I closed the window I was browsing on. I tried to imagine what the screen looked like earlier before I started using the computer. I placed the cursor on a spot on the screen exactly how my brother left it.
The gate swung open and I could hear him locking it back up. I needed to get out of his room. I ran out as fast as I could while simultaneously gently closing the door. I pulled on it lightly so it would not make an audible sound.
The screen door, which was the entry into the house, swung open. I knew he was in the house by then.
I went into the bathroom so he would not suspect anything of me. I stood inside and pressed my ear against the door to make sure I came out just at the right moment.
Step, step, step. I heard him walking towards his room. I flushed the toilet for effect and got ready to walk out.
I opened the bathroom door and walked to right in front of my room, as he was across me in the hallway. I walked in and closed the door behind me. I stayed by the door to listen. His door creeked as he swung it open and it slammed right back. I heard him sink into his computer’s chair and start clicking away.
“Phew, I’m in the clear.”
I plopped into my bed and started to relax. It was quiet, a little too quiet, that it was making me feel uncomfortable. And then, the thing I did not want to hear broke that silence but made me even more uncomfortable.
“Shaira, did you use my computer?”
My brother yelled over the sound of his door swinging open.
To this day, I still do not know how he found out. Did I forget to close something? I think I closed everything, including that porn photo. I will never understand.
Looking back at this experience, it was easy for me to see that it was an online practice for kids to have some sort of online alter ego that they did not want their families to see. I feel like as I had a sibling who was capable of finding out about my online persona, it became even more complicated to hide it. Through this experience, I saw how my brother was doing the exact same thing I did too.
Privacy is definitely a big deal when it comes to these new media networks. It may seem contradictory because of the fact that these help us publicize our lives. However, I think it is because of the very fact that it is so public that gives us even more reasons to pick and choose parts of our lives to keep private.
Growing up, I definitely saw that I had a different personality among friends than I did among relatives. I think this was the very basis of this phenomena, simply extended to the social media world.
Just like how you would hide things in your sock drawer for your parents not to find, kids underwent practices to keep their secrets away from their family. My secret was my angsty, boy crazy teenage life. For my brother, it was his porn stash.
