The Reality of the Virtual Autobiography

If technology can be viewed as ‘the opposite of the natural human’ (Van Luyn, 2015) from the approach of humanism, then who is it that we really presenting on social media? Are we authentic humans? Are we liars? Or are we merely horses being led by social media software and spurred on by peer pressure?  

As discussed in this week’s reading the integrity of a narrative in the online world can be extremely skewed (McNeill, 2012). In the same way that we are wanting to portray ourselves in the best possible light, we are holding ourselves to the assumed expectation that our followers or ‘friends’ want to see us in such a way as well. We present an ‘ideal self’ as R. Kay Green from The Huffington Post suggests (Green, 2013) and in turn, our recipients verify whether they approve of that image or not.

Take Tumblr for example; a blog’s aesthetic is the projected image in this case. As previously discussed, the aesthetic of a blog is that blog’s chosen identity, a portrayal of that person’s like, queries and opinions. However much of Tumblr has become specifically about acknowledging the unauthentic identity they have constructed and devaluing themselves in an effort to candidly contradict the image of their ideal self with their authentic identity. Such a concept can be seen in this post, where the original person has labelled themselves as an ‘extreme blogger by night’ but a ‘loser at school’.

The contradiction comes in noticeably in this situation as even the ‘honest’ portrayal of self is open to questioning. Tumblr has been known to harbour a colony of bitter, nonchalant, internally self-loathing bloggers and when they portray this negative image of themselves we must ask whether it is an accurate representation, whether it is a degraded representation, or even whether, in the same notion as the ideal self, it is merely a projection of what they think is expected of them and what they expect their followers to receive well.

References

Green, R.K. (2013) The Social Media Affect: Are We Really Who We Portray Online? The Huffington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/r-kay-green/the-social-media-effect-a_b_3721029.html?ir=Australia

McNeill, L. (2012) There Is No ‘I’ in Network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman Auto/Biography. Biography, Volume 35 (No. 1). Pp. 65-82. DOI: 10.1353

Unknown. (2015, July, 21^st). No Title [Tumblr Post]. Retrieved from http://donutterrorist.tumblr.com/post/124660206481/crrocs-loser-at-school-super-extreme-blogger-by?route=%2Fpost%2F%3Aid%2F%3Asummary

Unknown. (Unknown) Image Retrieved from http://rebloggy.com/post/photography-cute-quote-depressed-sad-kawaii-quotes-hipster-pink-purple-cute-quot/78778347021 

Van Luyn, A. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and making of place, Lecture 6: Networked Narratives: Intertextuality. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au