Social Networks

For this week’s blog post, I decided to look at two of my Facebook friends’ profiles and compare them.  Since everyone has different interests and personalities, I chose two very different friends of mine to consider how people portray themselves online.  Of course this will not encompass all profiles, it is just something to think about.  The first profile I looked at, Person A, has a Facebook profile very similar to mine.  I have known her for a very long time, and she frequently posts many pictures of her family, close friends, and pets.  Her posts on Facebook have not changed much throughout all of high school and now college, which I believe to be a testament to her true personality.  Although she is a woman, her profile is not particularly gendered; she has a job working as a scientist, so lately many of her posts involve scientific references.  The personality that comes through her Facebook profile is extremely similar to her personality in real life.  Due to our long friendship, I can say that her virtual profile would not lead anyone to believe she puts up a front or has two personas.

The next profile I looked at, Person B, gave a very different impression.  This person is also a woman and the most frequent pictures she posts are from the summer.  Usually, she is pictured with her friends either dressed to go to a party or to the beach.  In contrast to Person A, Person B only portrays a fun, party version of herself on social media, but around her family, her personality is more reserved.  Although many of us could probably identify this way, this really highlights the idea that people have “front stages” and “back stages” to their personalities.  Her profile is definitely gendered, due to the way hashtags and captions are used. 

I believe that social media has a huge spectrum of uses.  Some people wish to portray themselves and their lives as they are, while others enjoy carefully constructing their profiles to only portray one side of themselves.  Neither situation is better or worse than the other, they are simply preferences on how each person would like to portray themselves online.  The idea of “virtual profiles” could be understood in a couple of ways.  First, it could represent the person’s true personality through a different medium, therefore their profile would essentially be their virtual personality.  Or in another sense, some people would prefer to filter their “virtual profiles” to have complete control over how others perceive them.