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Celebrities, company, social media influencers are branding their self-representation in the form of “Online Identity.”In this virtual world where everything is on the Internet, our online identity becomes our persona with our social media platforms.The answering questions of “Who am I?” and “What am I?? is represent by online presentations and brand. “Brand is the key to identity”, so when creating my persona on the social media platform, I unlock what and who I am through to my online presence through social media.
“We oscillate between the forms attached to particular sites, and the acts and practices of self-representation and self-performance employed”
(Smith & Watson, 2014. pp.74)
Beginning of the Online world, I first started on my very first social platform is “G-Talk” which is a Google Talk which is instant messaging service. A social platform to chat in “ChatBox” with my friends in the means of text and voice communication. Then the emerges of Facebook rises where I can upload images and video; Facebook makes a game-changer of how we use “online communications” and interacts with friends, family and people who I inspired. Facebook is the only social site that everyone in Myanmar, using to have a fabulous social presence among the communities.
Even though I am not famous people or anything, I was “hooked” into this social site “Facebook.” Seeing my friends uploading photos of themselves, their pets, travels, food and so on. I, myself without knowing, been making the same habit of my friends do. My social presence is not much, to begin with until I use Instagram. When I am using Instagram, I quickly learn that I have a passion for photography and art. When using Facebook, I have been posting photos by mimicking of what other people do and celebrities as well.
However, I have seen how other people’s Instagram profiles use their aesthetic, enhancing their profiles with their post, photos and a short video. I got a better understanding of how I want to show myself visually through photos that I post and how I post. Hence, this creating Online Identity which my “Digital ID” formed into Online Space.
In a sense, the formation of our online identity is not only something that we do(by creating a vlog or sharing selfies on Instagram, for instance); it’s also something that happens to us as we do these things.
Reflecting this, the recommended reading by Anna Poletti and Julie Rak(2014, p. 8)
This quote above reflects on how I start, format and create my identity—showing the hobbies and interest which I posted to show one online id of what I like to do to show my personality by images or stores clips.
Instagram is the collection of images and photographs for people to showcase the specific brand, interest and compilations of data by aesthetically placing the post in the manner of making online identity clear to the viewers of what image of this profile is selling.
In addition to Instagram, I have twitter to follow the updates, trends and news to do networking and connect people in the community that I want to involve in. For instance, I have been using Twitter to tweet out what I like and tweeting out news and following the latest food trends, photography and lifestyle.
To answer the question of “Who am I Online ?” can be more straightforward of who I am offline as well interwoven with the digital space that I created. The online identity showcase on my social media account is pretty much how I developed and collections of my love for food and photography through my conscious of communicating with my following. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram is the free outlet site where everyone uses as the medium not just talking, bring out their personality. My online identity is composed of a variety of profiles scattered across multiple mediums. In which, I am doing the same what others are doing. Online Contents that I post each time reflect on what I am interested in, what do I do become a Digital identity of myself.
“Online spaces are constructed, and activities that people do online are intimately interwoven with the construction of the offline world and activities and structures in which we participate, whether we are using Internet or not.“
(Smith & Watson 2014, pp.70).
Reference:
Smith, S and Watson, J 2014, ‘Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation’, in Poletti, A and Rak, J (eds.), Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pp. 70-95.
Cover, R 2014, ‘Becoming and belonging: performativity, subjectivity, and the cultural purposes of social networking’, in Poletti, A and Rak, J (eds.), Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pp. 55-69.
social media by Sean MacEntee Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
https://flic.kr/p/8NM3he
Google Talk by Joe Anderson (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/4fXGw
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