When it comes to online identity, my first online identity was created 7 years ago and originally comes from Facebook, as I remember at that time Facebook was very popular and my Facebook account was created by my friend who also taught me how to use it. At that time, I found Facebook very interesting and greatly attracted by it, after that, I started to discover more (social media) like Instagram, WeChat, Skype, YouTube, Twitter and so on. I have to say spending hours on these social media has become a routine for me because I am not living in one world, I am living in two worlds now, physical world and virtual world, so it is necessary for me to visit my virtual world as frequently as I could, and it is also the place where my online identity comes from.
“Evelyn & her social media” by Evelyn Tang, 02 December 2017, made with canva
tweet embedded from my Twitter profile @Evelyn_Tris, December 2017
However, I have several social media accounts and only Facebook I own three accounts, and in each account, my online identities are different (some are slightly different). For example, like Twitter, even though I just created in recent years but I have to say it is really a helpful tool for academic purpose and practical application, I use twitter for study purpose, I really like the unit hashtag which allows me to stay up to date with the course information, it is also a creative and convenient tool for me to discuss with my peers and to share my ideas, so in twitter world I think I am a student. Moreover, I am a normal user in WeChat world, I have it several years ago and I only use it for keep in touch with my parents and to follow some Chinese news. YouTube is one of my favourite media platforms and I have an account for many years now even though I am not a YouTuber. YouTube for me is a place that I can relax, it only shows what I like to watch after I subscribed to my favorite channel like fitness, healthy cooking, beauty, fashion and entertainment, I can say that I become healthier and happier each time after I watched YouTube because it encourages me to follow them. However, the Research shows that when people using social media, the positions, interactions and categories that create one’s identity always remain the same (Brown 2012, p. 169). Therefore, although I perform differently on different platforms, but both my online and offline identities are the same they are all me —the ‘real’ me, I never wanted to be another person online.
Photograph by Evelyn Tang, 01 December 2017. Image of pink mouse & laptop
According to Brown (2012, p. 169), people like to think of themselves as being built by one ‘true’ self (the real me). This concept is, with some reflection, quite simplistic, as each person’s ‘self’ is both multifaceted and continually changing. Moreover, Thwaites et al. cited in Brown (2012, p. 169) also point out that, ‘one’s identity is a unique conglomeration of elements, a social composite. This social composite is built up from the interactions between the roles an individual adopts, the social positions one occupies and the categories one is placed in’. These elements always shift over time as our identities are rebuilt. Therefore, my online and offline identity is constantly changing, as time goes on.
tweet embedded from my Twitter profile @Evelyn_Tris, December 2017
Moreover, my online identity is not unchangeable even though it is on the same media platform like Facebook. I remember the first 2 years of using Facebook I was a true watcher (even now I am still watching) I rarely posted things especially the pictures of myself because I wanted to give people a mysterious sense (I don’t know if anyone found it mysterious) so I only used my favorite cartoon character as my profile picture, but years later I started to post lots of things on Facebook like my own images, status and so on, however, most of the things that I posted were complaining status, in other word, I treated Facebook as a doormat, afterwards, things have changed I no longer posted any complaining sentences because I found it useless and only showed a weak side of me. Therefore, since then, I only post happy and beautiful things, the purpose is to tell people that I am enjoying the present but it does not mean that my online identity is stopped changing.
‘phone’ by Tayloright (CC BY 2.0)
I have to say that I am very addicted to every kind of social media platforms and I am well aware that none of them are 100 percent safe, I think this is because of ‘internet affordances’. As Rak & Poletti (2013, p. 5) claim, ‘internet affordances help to determine how we will act online because they guide us to behave in a certain way or be a certain type of people’. The continual directive to ‘share’ personal information on social media sites like Linked In and Facebook is an example of media affordances which always ask the users to create a certain type of identity, one that can be shared. In the same way, the categories of life writing like daily or memoir build the terms within which people build identities, internet affordances can work (sometimes secretly) to build the rules for social interaction and the terms for identification. Therefore, affordances are a significant aspect of studying the ideological aspects of the production of online communities and online identities.
Additionally, according to Brown (2012, p. 169), we “manage” our real would identities every day, for example, we get dressed for parties, work, for university. In the same way, ‘considerations of our audience and the expectations might have affected the way we present ourselves online’. Therefore, when it comes to posting images or selfies on the social media, for me, I never post my selfies and images without retouching or make-up, to be honest, I am pretty scared of my friend or someone post the ugly pictures of me and tag me in. I know it is not a good thing to show only the pretty side of me, which is actually quite tiring, however, like Brown (2012, p. 169) states, considerations of my audience and the expectations have affects the way I present myself online.
tweet embedded from my Twitter profile @Evelyn_Tris, December 2017
Photograph by Evelyn Tang, 01 December 2017. Image of retouching photo
As Lanier (2010) states, ‘the small changes in the details of a digital design can have profound unforeseen effects changes on the experiences of the humans who playing with it’. For example, when Facebook began to have a ‘live’ function more and more people in Cambodia (my home country) or perhaps in Southeast Asian use it as a commercial tool to advertise their product because it is a low-cost method which allows anyone can be an online seller and people can easily attract by this new way of advertising, every time I see a growing number of people in Cambodia become an online seller through the use of ‘live’, I always think that maybe I would become one of them too if I do not study abroad.
To sum up, the internet has brought innumerable benefits to people, especially a second self—‘online identity’. My online identity has become an important part of me since the moment I created it, I cannot imagine if someday these social media no longer exists, I would suddenly loose in my mind and feel like something is missing, I can say that this is not a full me if my online identity is missing.
(1185 words, not including citations and captions)
Reference:
Brown, A 2012, ‘Social Networking and social Norms: Be Nice or I’ll delete you’, Communication, New Media And Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic, pp. 165-176.
Lanier, J 2010, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, Allen Lane, London.
Rak, J, & Poletti, A 2013, ‘introduction: Digital Dialogues’, in Rak, J, & Poletti, A, Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pp. 3-11.
Creative Commons:
Tayloright, 2017, ‘phone’, Flickr, retrieved 02 December 2017, <URL>.
Evelyn Tang 