KEYS TO THE INTERNET:
4 Square Past the Playground: Exploring the Internet and our Many Selves

This digital essay is meant to encompass the ways that individuals create their online identities, which can then lead them to build communities online. Social media can act as a way to curate a space and dictate who may enter it, as well as seek out others to join. In order to do this, individuals build an identity and then further attract individual through hashtags, interest groups, forums, networking sites and beyond. In order to analyse this complex dynamic system of online identity construction, we looked to a viral meme that provided a fulsome depiction of the differing nature of people’s identities from platform to platform. We defined physical reality as; our interactions and behaviours that occur in person and in real time and consistency as; when one presents themselves in a way that is synonymous with how they are perceived in physicality, including how they look, act, and speak. This digital essay offers a wholistic analysis of each platform that appears in the meme, as well as investigating their differences and similarities, as well as the ways they co-exist in the technological landscape.

Firstly, LinkedIn is a platform is an extension of a professional environment or workplace, which encourages users to present themselves as they would in a professional situation. Ultimately the site acts as an online resume and networking hub. LinkedIn provides an example of “territorially bound”[1] identity construction, whereby individuals behave and interact with the site in a particular way, that differs from how they may be acting on other sites. Unlike sites like tinder, there is no real benefit to being a “catfish” on LinkedIn as information housed on the site would eventually be verified more closely by the potential employer. LinkedIn participation “in some form of impression management online, be it curating a profile picture or agonising over the wording of a post, hoping to generate a satisfactory number of ‘likes,’”[2] which most often takes the form of trying to interest employers. Although branding can make identity construction may appear to only exist in the technological realm, projecting an idealistic version of oneself is present in the physical world too.

Premeditated behaviour expected in professional environments, especially while networking with new people or going to job interviews, which carries over into how people curate and filter their profiles[3]. There is consistency between the behaviours of identity construction in a professional environment like LinkedIn or a job interview offline.

Secondly, Facebook is a space where the online and offline self comes together much more seamlessly than other social media sites as the vast majority of its users use their real names and accompany their profiles with real pictures of themselves. With this in mind, Facebook is often used as a resource to verify what a person is like offline, a concept that is made possible by “anchored relationships” that dominate the site. Anchored relationships are online connections between people which began online and persist into the offline realm[4]. This puts Facebook’s users under certain constraints when crafting their profiles as they are held accountable to maintain a relatively high degree of consistency between their profile and who they are offline. Another one of Facebook’s features that renders it distinct is its allowance for its users to incorporate targeted performances in their behaviour. This allows users to determine who is privy to the content they release. This allows users to present themselves differently to different audiences, all within the same space.

Next, Instagram is a photo and video sharing app with limited textual posting. Most Instagram posts and accounts are highly curated, with content meant to match the theme or aesthetic of the person, business, or group which posts them. Once this look is “crafted”, users rarely stray from it, keeping most content consistent with the look, almost creating a brand for the user[5]. Personal Instagram accounts tend to be “perfected” representations of the self, as they are meant to be seen by an audience of extended acquaintances[6].

Some people make secondary “spam” accounts for inner groups of friends where they post content that they would not want to be seen by strangers, employers, or family, for reasons of embarrassment, professionalism, or other consequences. The “spam” and “main” accounts have equal consistency with how the person would behave with similar audiences and groups in physicality, and therefore, cannot be said that one is more “authentic” than the other. Additionally, much of the content on Instagram, especially memes, can be cross-listed with Twitter, and be seen as complementary[7]. The main differences between Instagram and Twitter posting is the goal of the user: Instagram users mainly stick to their “crafted” look, and Twitter users are often looking to post content that is funny, clever, or meant for a more intimate group of friends[8].

Finally, Tinder, an online dating site, promotes idyllic self-presentation as it features images as its primary mode of connection. By offering each user their own personalized card with their name, photos, and additional information, Tinder encourages potential matches to “take their pick” on heavily curated “desirable” profiles[9]. Tinder previously had ties with Facebook to prevent and protect its users from typical issues within these platforms alike, such as fraud. It was the simplest and safest way for Tinder to access one’s photos and personal data, age, sex, and preferences in order to assure that individuals were paired with a user’s consistent persona[10]. However convenient that arrangement was, individuals on Tinder often wanted separation from their identities and connections on Facebook[11].

Without Facebook, individuals have full control over the way they are perceived on the dating site. That being said, Tinder's ten picture limit raises concerns on the limitations of each individuals’ self-portrayal[12]. Tinder users are able to present themselves as a “catfish” or to be lured in by “fake” web personas. This lack of information may propel deception, fraud, and abuse within the platform which therefore constructs a web reality where individuals thrive under secret and/or “fake” identities[13].

All of these sites, regardless of their differing usages, are used by individuals to construct different facets of their identities. Although persona construction online has an inherently negative connotation, we chose to accept it as a natural outcome of technology being such a large part of the (Western, democratic) way of life. Just as we present ourselves in different ways, from our work-places, to bars with friends, it is still possible to portray different parts of your true self with territorially bound
consistency. Some induvial have wholly separated the personas they have on the internet and the physical world, while others have entirely merged their real lives with their online identities, and both are equally valid.

Evalyn Watson, Jamie Scoler, Catherine Cassels, Isadora Passos, and Gallus McIntyre

1. Emily van der Nagel and Jordan Frith, “Anonymity, Pseudonymity, and the Agency of Online Identity:
Examining the Social Practices of r/Gonewild,” in First Monday 20, no. 3 (2015). Link.

2. Gal Oestreicher-Singer, Hilah Giva and Maytal Saar-Tsechansky, “Building Online Personas: Has Social Media Become an Exercise in Self-Branding?” in London School of Economics Impact Blog, April 30, 2019. Link.

3. Laurie Mcneill and John Zuern, "ONLINE LIVES 2.0: INTRODUCTION," Biography 38, no. 2 (2015), 24.

4. Zhao, Shanyang, Sherri Grasmuck and Jason Martin, "Identity Construction on Facebook:
Digital Empowerment in Anchored Relationships," in Computers in Human Behavior 24 (2008), 1816-1836. Link.

5. Daniel Miller, "Crafting the Look," in Social Media in an English Village, 45-91 (London: UCL Press,
2016), 71.

6. Ibid., 84-85.

10. Swipebuster. “Tinder & Facebook: How They Work Together with Login, Profiles, & More!” Cheaterbuster, 22 Aug. 2019. Link.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

Postscript
Despite the recent events that shifted the course of our project and our ability to work on it, we wanted it to remain as collective as possible. That being said, we divided the beginning stages of work by assigning each person with a platform that they conducted research for and collected images for the PowerPoint. After those beginning stages, we worked together to synthesize the information and narrow down the overall message we wanted the digital essay to take on. Overall, we felt like this decision enhanced the cohesive nature of our project and was able to accurately portray the message that our group had. Having the four-square meme as the basis of our project offered a lot of structure to the project and made it much easier to complete, as it pre-sectioned the work that was needed, which was the individual analysis of each platform. Once the information was allocated to its own slides, and images were curated to accompany the information, we began to source the audio. After the voice recording was completed, we inserted different music that would have parallels to the subject matter and resonate with the viewer (elevator music for LinkedIn, Earth Wind and Fire for Facebook, etc.). Finally, the transitions and durations were implemented to align with the audio, which really shifted it from a PowerPoint to a video presentation.

7. Ibid., 45.

8. Ibid., 85.

9. David, Gaby, and Carolina Cambre, “Screened Intimacies: Tinder and the Swipe Logic,” in Social Media +
Society, Apr. 2016. Link.

13. Ranzini, Giulia, and Christoph Lutz, “Love at First Swipe? Explaining Tinder Self-Presentation and Motives,” Mobile Media & Communication, vol. 5, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 80–101. Link.