Having your own virtual place on
Facebook allows you to create experiment with aspect of your personality. To
present this edited version of yourself to the world. In this fantasy you manipulate
the world in which, this ‘you’ based avatar resides in. To further this, with
the new timeline aspect on Facebook, it allows you to create a details
narrative of your life. (Facebook, 2012) The images and posts
you upload, to the links you like help form the narrative of your life.
Facebook
allows you to control almost every aspect of your Facebook world, from who can
view your profile, what details on your profile can be viewed, to what other
people can post about you. By utilizing all the settings and controls on Facebook
you can create almost perfect snapshot of the self you wish to present.
However, with the meticulous control the reality of Facebook become almost null
and void. (OJALVO, 2011)
Facebook
takes the role of a modern day narrative. Where the image you upload and status
you post become metaphors about periods in your life. (Luyn, 2013) View together on an individual’s time line
its reads like a narrative.
It’s at the
stage where each individual’s timeline be categorised into a genre, which
online are called “Facebook Personalities”. Do you fit into one of CNN’s 12
annoying Facebook personalities? Check out this link to find out…
Is the
narrative you tell of yourself based on fact or fiction? Is your place in the
cyber-world of Facebook a narrative you want the world to read?
References
blimeycow. (2013, May 26). I Like You in Real
Life (But Not on the Internet). Retrieved from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW8fWEJmBVs
Facebook. (2012). Introducing Timeline.
Retrieved from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline
Griggs, B. (2009, August 25). The 12 most
annoying types of Facebookers. Retrieved from CNN:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html
Luyn,
Ariella van. (2013). BA1002:
Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place, Week 5 [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://www.learnjcu.edu.au
OJALVO, H. E. (2011, May 10). What is Your
Facebook Persona. Retrieved from The Learning Network:
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/what-is-your-facebook-persona/?_r=0
Unknown. (2012). Facebook vs Reality.
Retrieved from The Weirdly Wired World:
http://theweirdlywiredworld.com/facebook-v-s-reality/
That video is brilliant :D
ReplyDeleteIt bizarre that there seems to be these kind of narrative tropes developing on social networks. We all kind of slip into these pre-existing patterns of self-representation. I guess, in a sense, its similar to the way people define themselves in accordance with patterns of identity in the real world (you know nerd, sports-fan, rev-head, muso, hippie, etc).