Unspun - Chapter 2 – Identity

The author begins by stating how “we see ourselves today in and through the available media”. Unlike other mediums, cyberspace allows us to be immersed in it. “Because media are simultaneously technical analogs and social expressions of our identity, we become simultaneously both the subject and object of our contemporary media. The media which we consume becomes the media by which we are defined. The various forms of media present different sides of each subject they study. Also, at the forefront, media views a person as a “consumer”. Just as print ads and television commercials utilized graphics in advertising campaigns, the Web embraced graphical ads. However, with the advent of “streaming media”, the move from graphics to “audiovisual”, as seen in television-like pop up ads. WebTV is an example of a merge of television with the World Wide Web. Movie studios utilize the web to turn their movies into phenomena. Music executives use the internet to distribute music through pay sites like iTunes. The internet is specifically attuned to the user, a luxury that earlier media was not able to take advantage of. The sites one visits can have a direct impact on the types of advertisements that are displayed. Some suppliers take that information and sell it to the highest bidder, a practice that has come under much criticism lately. All these are efforts to reach a personalized demographic.

In order to make it a true two-way communications system, the consumer must be able to “talk back”. In this way, the consumer is also the producer. Although most do not utilize the concept of homepages, many have the technological know-how to produce a website of their own, thus becoming both the consumer and the producer. There is no difference in the accessibility of a homepage as opposed to a professionally run site; all are reachable by URL or a web address. People who cannot produce media otherwise are able to show their creativity and endeavors online with little to no effort. The “personal homepage” is one of the most important ways of establishing an online identity.

There are different formats of the homepage, from simply an online version of a business resume to an almost comprehensive study of the webmaster and his/her personality. Indeed, the possibilities of a homepage are limitless and the audience is boundless and international. There is a difference between the content offered. Some choose to be anonymous, and others feel like their webpage is a place where readers can find out everything about them. Still others treat their website as a personal scrapbook, understandable by only a small, select audience. Thus, there is a blurred line between what is personal and what is public on the web. A website does for the author what publishing a memoir or biography does: take semi-private details and broadcast them to a wide audience. However, the audience of the Web is infinitely larger than that of a standard publishing ring; the Web is, if you’ll pardon the pun, “world wide”.

Many people feel so open on the internet that they feel a need to project visuals of themselves online. The amount of picture sharing sites online grows by leaps and bounds. The webcam was introduced and suddenly entire videos (some complete with audio!) were available online. Webcams have the ability to be put anywhere there is an active web connection, so the subjects of webcams are varied. It is an odd combination of closed circuit television mixed with that of live broadcasts. It is also an interactive form of media because in some cases, the viewer can control the mechanism and has a choice of what he/she wants to see.

Still, webcams are a new development in the arena of homepages. Like the homepage, there are differing degrees of disclosure. Some have webcams that broadcast constantly in more private areas of their home, while on the other end of the spectrum there are webcams that just broadcast public places. The popularity of their webcam can make some feel like internet celebrities, where there is only fifteen seconds of fame as opposed to fifteen minutes. The concept of celebrity was drastically changed by the advent of the internet. Anyone can deem themselves an internet celebrity and make their life into a “show”. This is definitely a show of narcissism. They become performance artists who, through “media saturation”, become famous and eventually find such things second nature. Their innate behavior is changed through the broadcast of their peccadilloes.

Gergen acknowledges this in saying that all these different “relationships pull us in a myriad of directions, inviting us to play such a variety of roles that the very concept of an ‘authentic self’ with knowable characteristics recedes from view”. In many of the online communities and concepts, the creation of a new identity is needed. (MUDs and MOOs)

Early computer scientists believed that artificial intelligence would soon surpass the brain in the “analytical, rational, and transparent aspects” of thinking. MUDs and the like are more social than intellectual. The inherent playfulness of a chatroom or MUD is the main attraction of such a thing. In a way, it is like writing an electronic novel or play collectively. Character is often more important than plot in this type of medium and often, the narrative is collective. The authorship is shared and the authors can change identities with a blink of an eye. While different identities are used for various real life situations (ie. How you act with friends versus how you act with professors), the online way of different identities is more open, with gender roles often being switched. The real-time communication is in essence a show of post-modernity in that it is easily adaptable and duplicates the act of chatting personally with someone. The book describes it as “multiplicity and flexibility”. MUDs are like regular webpages because there is a set path to take, but the spontaneity that is available in this media makes it also like a novel. The hyperlinks enable it to be fluid and flexible. MUDs illustrate Joyce’s idea of “’constructive hypertext’, offering its participants a site for defining a networked self or indeed a whole series of networked selves.

Older ideas of identity were more united and homogenous. With the advent of the internet, that postmodern idea of identity challenged the Descartes concept of stability and changed the idea of an “autonomous ego”. The Web offers us many avenues in which to explore different areas of our identities, distilling them in some ways as to make them separate. This “networked self” is an embodiment of the Web’s fluidity. One is always able to change themselves and others’ perceptions of themselves through the internet. Community is not as strong, however, and it suffers because of the varying identities. Community is turned into a constantly changing group of people who, in turn, constantly change themselves.

Cartesian thought maintained a strict line between mind and body, eschewing physical characteristics. The web is straddling that line by not allowing physical limitations. Some believe that the cultural limitations linger, thus discounting the loss of the physical self as a “Cartesian trick.” However, the cultural, embodied self does make its way into an internet identity, even when one tries not to. “Cyberspace simply becomes another arena for the complex social negotiations of our culture.” If one attempts to erase those qualities, the internet community becomes boring and the norms of society take over. Electronic communication cannot deny our identities, merely disguise them. In using these technologies to examine ourselves, one finds that the internet is used to change the parts of themselves that they do not like, much like cosmetics does to our concrete body. In cyberspace, one presents the ideal self that they wish to proclaim to the world. That is the whole point of identity in cyberspace.