Who are you? Such a simple question and yet so complex. Simply, I'm Emi Nell, I'm 21 and I live in Capitola. But really, past that...who am I? Of course, I'm still Emi, still 21 and still live in Capitola. But I have passions and fears and hopes most people don't even know about. Do I write those things on my Facebook? Maybe...but mostly not. I show my Facebook friends and fellow bloggers and Twitter followers, my social identity; my personal identity is 90% of the time kept off of the internet.
I thought this article was interesting because it discussed social and personal identities and how they influence each other. Although the article says we're mostly entirely ourselves on Facebook because of it's questions and prompts (age, relationship status, school/insitution, hometown, etc, etc), I believe that our Facebook selves and somewhat socially constucted. What we put on Facebook is what we want people to know about us. We want to seem friendly, interesting; we want people to friend us. Everything we write about ourselves is so that we're precieved a certain way, "I'm a vegetarian" could read something like, "I like animals", "I'm healthy" or even "I want to look like I like animals and live a healthy lifestyle". Attending numerous 'events' could show that we're either popular, in the know, or once again, just like we want to seem like those things.
I think it's really easy for us to construct a social identity; we want people to perceive us a certain way so we mention things about ourselves that make us seem that way. What's interesting is when someone lacks the ability to create a social indentity seperate from their personal identity. For example, while we write to let our friends know about our whereabouts or activites, we (generally) don't update on our hygiene or bathroom habits. My boyfriend has a childhood friend who has Asperger's syndrome, a form of very high functioning autism. What our friend lacks are social skills. His Facebook is filled with things many of us would rather shield our eyes from. He has one album only viewable by 5 or so friends but by it's title 'The Bathroom' we can all imagine what kind of pictures it contains. His about me is so simply and straightfoward, "I am a 21 year old high school graduate attending *** **** ***** and trying to relax and for the most part happy go lucky and down to do anything. Well, except for S&M domination shit and intentionally slaughtering animals of any kind. No I'm not vegetarian, but I don't like to think about where the meat I eat came from". He could literally care less about what anyone thinks about him and has no desire to create a social indentity seperate from his personal identity...and for that reason I appreciate him as a friend who is always there to put me into check. Haha :)
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