I know that it’s been awhile since I’ve written. Yes, it’s fast approaching midterms and the first round of assignments, and I’m aware those aren’t valid excuses because of time management….so you got me there. But, what I’m about to write did trouble me for a bit. Not in the-world’s-going-to-end kind of way, but my-world-in-my-head shaking—thought-provoking—wait-a-second—huh?!! kind of way.
While Goffman elaborates on how humans have crafted the art of putting on our masks designated for each situation, Foucault assumes that we are watching each other and making sure these acts are up to standards. So, in a sense I act the way I do because I’m expected to.
Or is it that I act according to how the public perceives me?
Or…I act how I want people to see me?
Hmm, all are very good possibilities, and all, or some, or one could be true. Then, who am I?
Growing up, I disliked the possibility of being labelled and stereotyped as a vapid, dippy, girly girl. I also grew up in a predominantly White-Anglo-Saxon town, which did not help my identity as an ethnic minority. I battled my parents strong cultural beliefs, practices and values, and secretly pretended to disregard my cultural identity at school. I decided that I needed to become white-washed. In high school, I made it a point to be friendly to everyone, but keep my distance from the girls, and infiltrate the boys. I decided to be one of the guys. So what does this all mean?
At risk of exposing myself, at some point(s) in my life, I chose these identities of me and actively constructed them for myself. In the Foucauldian sense, I saw that I needed to be white-washed because I was too different that people in my community would not be able to process and understand my culture. The community standard in living in the panopticon of cookie-cutter suburbia was to act like everybody else, which meant to dismiss my culture and be a banana. Goffman would have told me that I am performing my “whiteness” and “guy mentality” as an act based on my surroundings. Since everybody around me was White, I performed being White. Furthermore, though I opted to hang with the boys rather than waddle in the drama of the girl cliques, I ultimately managed my identity to fit in with the guys.
So I became who I am based on my surroundings and company? Does this really account for how my identity was and/or is formed, and does this reflect my authentic true being? I’m not the greatest with philosophy, so maybe this explains my struggle with this post.
While my thoughts are still percolating, tossing in the wrench of the computer, social media, and online identity throws me in for a loop. How is my online identity constructed? Do I build it as I am, or how I want others to see me? Has my Facebook identity evolved and changed like I have, or does it stay stagnant locked in a matrix somewhere?
Computer, I ask you this as a friend…how much of my identity do you control and hold?
to be continued…
Sam 2, Computer 1