The Wonder(and)full World of Pretend and Make-Believe

According to Turkle, the idea of the self is constructed and reconstructed. This to me sounds much like the panopticon of Foucault. In this way, our identity must be influenced by our relationship with social media.

Though her work is dated, it seems that many current researchers are always referencing back to her works. While she notes that internet use (or what she called back then – playing in the MUDS) can be cathartic and provide personal and interpersonal insight, I wonder how that plays into the construction of my online, and ultimately offline identity. Through ‘mudding’, it seems that  “’you are who you pretend to be’” (147) by a process of a “projection of inner fantasies” (148). Perhaps people are drawn to social media and information communication technology as they can hide behind a screen while working out the personal, as opposed to the possibilities of dealing face-to-face.

Additionally, Turkle posits that while “…role-playing games enable people to work through issues of identity” (145), boundaries get blurred between what is real and what is online. But what strikes me is the whole notion of “you are who you pretend to be”…the key word being pretend. As I make sense of social media and the authenticity of the performance of identity, need I say more about pretend?! Wait a second, is this some kind of euphemism for “Fake it til you make it”?! I’ll admit, in certain circumstances, like the first day of a new job, I most certainly fake the best of myself to make it seem to my employer and co-workers that I know how to work the photocopier, but that doesn’t speak volumes of the authenticity of my identity….does it?

In relating to notions of gender, Turkle explains how construction of gender is more heightened and aware as well as enforced through ‘mudding’. Through the ability to don avatars, people are allowed the opportunity to pretend to be someone else they’re not, such as a female when in real life they are male. Through this act, mudding allows for reflection and catharsis, and allows for people to work through these issues and realize them…but is this successful? Or are we further perpetuating stereotypes? If I pretend to portray myself as a rocker from a metal band online, how do I act – like Gene Simmons? Is that portrayal not a stereotype, or an authentic and accurate representation of all rockers from metal bands?

Black, white, female, male, dog…it doesn’t matter….right?

It has come to my privileged attention that I often forget that only a small fraction of the world’s population actually has access to the internet and information communication technology. That said, it leads me to wonder what kinds of narratives the internet conveys…I’m thinking along the lines of the ideologies of the White, Euro-centric, and patriarchal.

Returning to Foucault, Balsamo points that “…it does appear that virtual reality technologies are implicated in the production of a certain set of cultural narratives that reproduce dominant relations of power. Perhaps a better approach for evaluating the meaning of these new technologies is to try to elaborate the ways in which such technologies and, more importantly, the use of such technologies, are determined by broader social and cultural forces” (123) and “In short, what the VR encounters really provide is an illusion of control over reality, nature, and especially over the unruly, gender- and race-marked, essentially mortal body” (127). Yet, in looking at Race in Cyberspace, “neither the invisibility nor the mutability of online identity make it possible for you to escape your ‘real world’ identity completely. Consequently, race matters in cyberspace precisely because all of us who spend time online are already shaped by the ways in which race matters offline, and we can’t help but bring our own knowledge, experiences, and values with us when we log on” (5).

I’ve mentioned  before that perhaps we are disillusioned into feeding into the craze that is the internet. I must also make a reminder towards Eric McLuhan’s parallels of the traps of information communication technology as Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. But dammit, I love me some internet. It’s just such a strange feeling, like being duped by a shady, yet convincing salesperson. I know that I really don’t have control, in fact, everything I write, post, and look at the internet is all tracked, but then again…it’s all so easy. to. just. succumb.

“By analogy, the fact that virtual realities offer new information environments does not guarantee that people will use the information in better ways. It is just as likely that these new technologies will be used primarily to tell old stories – stories that reproduce, in high-tech guise, traditional narratives about the gendered, race-marked body” (132). Computer, you’ve seemed to trick me again. First, with the illusion of control thing, and now by telling me that the internet in fact is recycling narratives? We live in a binary narrative world with binary modes of thinking, with that in mind, it is ironic to share that early technological communication began with binary codes ie: 1 and o — very sexually symbolic of male and female if you ask me, thus metaphorically gendering technology.

Something else keeps coming to mind. Oh yes, something along the lines of: “I’m just a girl, computers are so confusing with all the gadgets and buttons. I’m scared I’m going to mess something up!” Without furthering this, I will on the surface let you come to your own conclusions of the computer, and hence the internet being gendered (can you guess…male?!).

“Cyberspace and race are both constructed cultural phenomena, not products of ‘nature’; they are made up of ongoing processes of definition, performance, enactment, and identity creation” (10). While the notion of anonymity is thought to be present online, why should race, or gender, or able-ism, or any ism, or if you’re a dog, matter? Gender and race is naturalized and normalized, produced and reproduced, and has taken over technology. That is all.

Teenage Wastelands

As I turn my attention to teens, I can’t help but see the ironies in their identity creation through information communication technology.

“American society has a very peculiar relationship to teenagers – and children in general. They are simultaneously idealized and demonized; adults fear them but they also seek to protect them…youth have very little access to public spaces. The spaces they can hang out in are heavily controlled and/or under surveillance” (414-415) which is why according to boyd, teens are drawn to social media. The idea of networked spaces as ideal places for teens, are made in comparison to the metaphoric “mall”…as the place to be seen in public. The internet allows teens to loiter in the spaces of the internet.

Interestingly, “…what teens are doing with this networked public is akin to what they have done in every other type of public they have access to: they hang out, jockey for social status, work through how to present themselves, and take risks that will help them to assess the boundaries of the social world. They do so because they seek access to adult society. Their participation is deeply rooted in their desire to engage publicly” (415). While hanging out online is all for show of social status, not having online presence can be seen as social suicide.

In a Ryerson mediated presentation about privacy policies and social media by University of Western Ontario professor, Jacquelyn Burkell, the question of our honesty on Facebook is raised. She found there was a common thread of projection on what she calls Facebook insiders (as opposed to the conservatives): who are younger, with larger social capital, lots of usage, lots of pics of them drinking, perhaps a sense of naiveté that they may later regret and reconsider their image. However, she also points out that these images and portrayals are carefully contrived and engineered. They know what they are doing because they post with the understanding that it will be looked at, and as such, they post it to look good.

In understanding and misunderstanding of what our audience, and who are selected audience is, it may seem that we can pick and choose our followers. The reality is, the entire world has access to our online profiles and identities whether we like it or not. While employers can look at a potential hire’s Facebook page, teens argue otherwise that it’s private only to them. But such is the nature of posting online. It’s an unwritten agreement of sharing it with the entire online world.

Burkell also touched on an idea of a “biographical record” as being scary and complicated. As stated, stories are told and re-told. But in re-telling stories, like the game of broken telephone, or embellishments of narrators, things can get misconstrued along the way. Thus, can people misinterpret my online identity thus understanding my real being as something entirely different from what I set out to construct?