Intra Vires: To make up for our paltry offering of “real” news, this year we will be writing fake news. Not just fake news, but fake sarcastic news which is about as close to art as news gets. Haven’t you read the Onion? Welcome to Intra Vires.
Once again, 2Ls across Canada have begun the annual ritual of changing their Facebook names. Hoping to prevent prospective employers from learning about their personal lives, many students choose to change their name to something unsearchable – a foreign script, a name-based pun, or substituting middle and first names.
Some students cited the incredibly personal nature of their facebook accounts as a reason to make the switch.
“As silly as it sounds, our generation really does try to show the best version of ourselves through our facebook accounts.” Said Oliver Smickle, a 2L. “Not only is it a photo and video record of how we actually live our lives, but it is also a meaningful reflective process that forces us to consider our own values, select the things most important to us, and to share them with the world.”
“And this is why it is absolutely paramount that we hide this information from the firms that we intend to spend the rest of our lives working for.”
Intra Vires was initially skeptical of whether such paranoia was necessary. Do employers actually care about students’ Facebook accounts? Do they even know what Facebook is?
“We definitely missed a few years” said Ms. Donahee, the student programs coordinator at a Bay street firm. “We only caught on to the existence of Facebook when that movie came out. And even then, the people who make important decisions about hiring policies stopped caring about broader society or culture before any of you were born.”
But once firms caught on, even senior partners realized how important facebook was for their hiring process.
“Look, I’m a partner at a bay street law firm. I charge $1260 an hour. I manage a practice group of associates who work 10 hours a day and generate millions for the firm.” said a large, hirsute woman. “But every September I make damn sure that we all spend several hours looking students up on facebook and creeping through hundreds of photos on the off chance that we might find a photo of Johnny Student sucking back a tallboy. It may not be billable, but what choice do we have?”
“God forbid we find that you use alcohol abuse as a way to overcome your personal failings. That has absolutely no place in the legal profession”
Some students are more concerned that their political views might disqualify them from a high powered Bay street job.
“Look, I’m unabashedly left wing. I care passionately about the injustices in our society and I’m not afraid to say so on my facebook page.” Said everyone, ever. “I just think that the corporate world might be too conservative and patriarchal to accept me, and it’s very important for my self esteem to continue to believe that”
“God, one time I even posted a link from rabble.ca”
“Of course, you also have to ask yourself,” said a Bay street lawyer, “if the students actually believe these political things they post on facebook, why do they even want to work for a law firm that they clearly think protects and enables evil, socially destructive corporations?”
Of course, for some students, changing their facebook name is simply a way to stand out.
“Look, you just can’t forego any opportunity to present yourself as a unique, beautiful snowflake to the world. I know I can change my privacy settings to unsearchable. I know I could just remove photos. But do either of those things let me flout my minimal understanding of a foreign script I learned in my year off before law school?” said a white person.
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The author would like to remind readers that despite the tone of this article, changing your privacy settings is probably a good idea because, shit, who knows right?
