Unwrapping Online Identities
Analysis and Written: by Fernando Savero Suhendra
Published Date : Thursday, 30 April 2020
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| Attributes to my Online Identities Screenshot from Twitter by Fernando Savero Suhendra
With advancements in technologies, social medias, such as Blogger, Twitter, and WhatsApp, have executed prominent roles in constructing self-identities, interconnecting individuals, and also forging communities, from associates, families, and even peers. Social medias have enclosed gaps, enabling individuals to contact or network from everywhere anytime. People are no longer bounded by geographical locations. Shifts from the offline, ‘real’ world to its virtual counterparts have posed an essential towards online identities. As Nancy Baym (2016) infers, “online spaces are constructed and the activities that people do online are intimately interwoven with the construction of the offline world and the activities and structures in which we participate, whether we are using the Internet or not” (86, cited in Smith and Watson 2014 p. 70). Online worlds, desirable or not, have reshape spheres of societies, penetrating minds, reinventing cultures. Katherine Hayles (2003) concludes that online domain has “blend individuals into a collectivity, blur human boundaries as people merge with technological apparatus, and reconfigure cultural formations” (cited in Smith and Watson 2014 p. 71). While this breakthrough is beneficial, it also has the capacity to deteriorates the actual selves.
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| Promoting my Blogger's Profile Through Twitter Screenshot by Fernando Savero |
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| Online Identity's Discovery Screenshot by Fernando Savero |
As a passionate writer, one of the common visited and utilised social sites is Blogger, as it consents me to convey my thinking, including ideas and reflections, on any particular topics as well as narrate my life stories. Similar to a journal, I am capable of expressing myself on any particular days, preferably in the evening, recording my activities throughout the day. One of blog post posted pertained to my autobiography since I was a child, where unbelievable miracle occurred. The overall theme of my blog is ‘The Journey of Grace’, since I acknowledge that it is only by God’s grace, I am still adequate to wander this course of life. Indeed, as Poletti and Rak (2014 p. 3) noticed, “Nowhere is the power and diversity of the autobiographical more visible than online…, and where acquiring and maintaining online identities make up the core activities of many users.” Through online media, those writings are able to be attained and comprehended by wider scope of audiences. Despite the fact that readers never met personally, they can still be immersed in the flow of accounts. This correlate with the theory proposed by Lauren Berlant (1997) and Anna Poletti (2011) in which, “the selves produced through various sites can convey to visitors and users a sense of intimacy-the intimacy of the quotidian details of daily life, the intimacy of shared confession and self-revelation, the intimacy of unique voice or persona or virtual sensibility.” (cited in Smith and Watson 2014 p. 75)
Self-identity, although recounted through writing in blog posts, is a result of living day-by-day. It is an outcome of decisions seized in the process of life accumulated over times, through ups and downs, encountering challenges as well as opportunities along the way. It is how selves long to be characterized. For me, I identify myself as adventurous, artistic, courageous, and eloquent. According to Poletti and Rak (2014 p.8), “the stuff of autobiographical storytelling, then, is drawn from multiple, disparate and discontinuous experiences and the multiple identities constructed from and constructing those experiences.”
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| 'The Journey of Grace's blog post Screenshot by Fernando Savero |
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| Profile page in Blogger Screenshot by Fernando Savero |
Another social media that I utilised daily is WhatsApp. Mobile App Daily listed WhatsApp as one of the 21 prominent social media apps this year, surpassing Facebook, Line, and YouTube. WhatsApp enable me to form long-lasting friendships and relations with families’ members, college’s friends, and also church fellow cell-group members. Through WhatsApp, information, whether in the form of texts, images, or even videos, are able to be circulated effectively and efficiently. It also enabled personalized approach despite being separated by geographical boundaries, either in the form of video call, voice call, or even just text messages. An example is that I, who live in Bandung, Indonesia is capable to have a video call with my brother, who is currently undergoing his university study in Seattle, the United States, albeit time difference. However, social medias, such as this, is also not loose from misconducts and offenses, such as identity theft, where certain individuals conduct transactions applying another person’s identity, without his or her permission. Poletti and Rak wrote, “As more and more people use electronic banking, engage in online commercial transactions, and communicate with each other online, the idea of identity as property as well as one’s essence is put under increasing pressure” (Poletti and Rak 2014 p. 9).
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| 'The Suhendra family' WhatsApp's group Screenshot by Fernando Savero |
To conclude, as Sherry Turkle (2012 p. 243 as cited in Smith and Watson 2014 p. 92) advises, “We have to love our technology enough to describe it accurately. And we have to love ourselves enough to confront technology’s true effects on us.”
Bibliographies:
- Smith, S and Watson, J 2014, 'Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation', in Poletti, A and Rak, J, Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online,The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pp. 70-95
- Poletti,A and Rak, J 2014, 'Introduction: Digital Dialogues', in Poletti, A and Rak, J, Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pp. 3-11
- Vikram 2020, Best 21 Social Media Apps That Will Rule in 2020, Mobile App Daily, retrieved 30 April 2020, <https://www.mobileappdaily.com/best-social-media-apps>
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