Losing your profile

I remember a time when you weren’t checking your phone, emails, Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace and the only excitement you got was seeing the light flashing on the large box recorder next to the telephone.

I can still hear us screaming, “Message, we have a message”. The whole family would run to the machine.

These things quickly become a part of our lives, and we soon accept them and work with them.

Facebook has become a huge part of many of our lives. Many showgirls use it for work. I receive many booking requests through Facebook. Punters who see me on stage but don’t know how to contact me can now just search and, bingo, there I am.

We also use it to promote where we are going to be. Performing for close to 15 years, and meeting new people every night and day, my friends list is quite big.  I have friends from all over the world who send me messages, who I would never hear from again without Facebook.

I have photos dating back to when I started performing that friends have dug up and scanned in. Many showgirls’ photo albums are like time capsules.

I was devastated when I learnt that some showgirls were having their profiles deleted. The most recent was Ms Vanity Faire, with no reason given.

Some believe it is because Vanity Faire isn’t a real person, although 3000 people call her a friend and most know her enough to have a conversation with her.

Where does ‘not real’ come into it? Don’t many actors change their name for stage? Would they also be subject to this same deleting?

When you delete a profile, all your pictures, videos and stored messages are lost. If you had years of history on your page, it would be lost forever.

To cover my ass I have madly been saving all my pictures to my website and laptop, just in case I log on one day and I am no longer.

Maybe we should get a higher force on to this. Maybe I should speak to RuPaul — surely she has some pull at Facebook central.