Hysterichattie

Wiki Exercise Portfolio

Wiki Exercise #2

’To what extent are my online and offline identities aligned?’

With the usual requirement of a profile on social media, small opportunities of sharing your personal information arise every day through numerous social online platforms. This ranges from encouraging short biographies, your favourite pictures and even your political views. With a few clicks, the array of information on one person is accessible all from their digital footprint and their identity plastered on their user profile. But how true is this identity? The term ‘Catfishing’ has become an extreme result of manipulating a user profile to portray any person, real or not. Whether or not users will go to extreme lengths to pretend to be someone else, social media does however make it incredibly easy to share what we want to share and therefore manipulate users into viewing their perfected self.

Instagram User

Social media platforms such as Instagram have become successful through their reliability on the ideas of narcissism. Although this contributes to our need to perfect ourselves, with the advancement of social media and millennials as users, it is clear that the pressure to be a certain way is posted all around the world for everyone to see. This notion is echoed by Papacharissi who states: “People who are able to post only that information which presents a desire image. While people are purportedly presenting themselves, they are presenting a highly selective version of themselves.”

For example, personally I noticed the shift between my content becoming more manipulated to fit a particular aesthetic due to the trend of public profiles and gaining more likes. Once popularity was introduced into social media, including popular users now profiting off their content, I felt a need to keep up. This can be achieved at any cost with apps like ‘Facetune’ who profit billions of pounds every year to allow users to simply edit their photos including altering body shape and skin pigmentation. As well as this, the threat of judgement and ‘troll’ comments motivates others to keep within boundaries of what is acceptable to post and what is not. The uniqueness of user identities is becoming a rarity.

Photography: A True or False Image?

Although, some would contest this and argue that other social media platforms encourage a more authentic approach in what users should post. For example, Twitter has been praised for its involvement in politics and news, often resulting in more personal profiles with truer statements. I find myself that I use certain social platforms for different reasons. For example, I use Instagram for photography that I produce for others in mind, critical of what would gain more likes and therefore I lose my offline identity in the process. Yet, I use Twitter to encourage my offline identity to align with my online identity by posting what I feel are important reflections of my every day life and opinions. Harrison defines this in her paper, explaining that “…private images have a transcendental role in negotiating private and public realms. Personal photography, particularly the commodification of the self, threatens the boundaries between the public and private.”

Overall, the balance of offline and online identities seems to be effected by the judgements and criticisms followed from increasing popularities and trends. It can also be understood that depending on the social media platform, identities can change to being more authentic than others. In today’s world it is clear that the pressure of ‘goals’ is often the reason for the mask placed over user profiles.

Hysterichattie (talk) 10:59, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Bibliography

Harrison, B. (2002) 'Everyday Photographic Practice: people, relationships, Networkds and Community' Paper Presented at International Visual Sociology Association Conference, Greece.

Papacharissi, Z.(2010) 'A Network Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites'. Routledge. pp. 253

Hysterichattie (talk) 11:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Websites/ Articles Regarding This Topic

Identity Hacked, Huffington Post

Brett Gleason discusses his interesting response to losing his twitter account, and as he explains, his identity along with it. This link here comments on our attachment to social media and popularity and how we treat our social media accounts as possessions.

Why is Facetune so popular? BBC News

This BBC video shows presenter Mark Lobel visiting the designers of the Facetune app and investigates how they created it. This video explores the tools necessary in today's social online world and shows how photoshopping is a skill anyone can achieve through their smartphone.

Hysterichattie (talk) 11:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Exercise Discussion