We had a very enjoyable Google Hangout session this morning. Among other things, we discussed online identity, sparked by our initial MOOC experiences, helped by Dirk wearing a mask from time to time. I don’t think Dirk is wearing the mask in this screen shot:
Shame. But his experiment made me conscious of some of the complex meanings-creations we engage in online. Reports of the recent adoption by Twitter of a blue tick for ‘real’ accounts (as opposed to ‘fake’ ones) for whose having a “great, high-quality account” that is of “public interest” are only the tip of an iceberg of how we create identities for others online.
One of the great things about Google Hangouts is that one gets to ‘see’ and hear ‘someone’. Their backdrop suddenly gives a realm of data for placing them. Are they in an office (lots of books? or white-board in the wall?), at home (living room? loft extension?). Or, in Myles’ case – or so it seemed – in a tent, at an agricultural show? It’s partial information, for sure, but a stack more to relate with than on MOOC, even with disclosure set to the max. And relating is, inevitably, going to be better – at least in the potential offered by richer data.
At the same time, I think the whole identity-construction thing on the Hangout is a fiction, at least in the etymological sense of the word: it’s something made. We’re making meaning. In 1983 Benedict Anderson write a seminal work on nationalism called ‘Imagined Communities’. What with nationalism, so with online communities. We’re imagining it into being. That doesn’t mean it’s less real than national identities. But nor is it less contested, either potentially or – sadly – sometimes in reality. ‘Flaming’ and ‘trolling’ have their parallels in national conflicts.
But, thankfully, none of that yesterday. But, back to Dirk’s mask. As I mentioned, it’s Dirk’s real face that plays tricks on my identity construction for me. He reminds me of a dear friend of mine, who I rarely meet these days, and it’s hard not to have some context collapse (to draw on boyd’s term) and impose some personality similarities on to Dirk. Sorry, Dirk, I’ll keep trying to relate with you as you. Also, Dirk, if you are like Mark (hey, only two letters difference in the name…), in my book that would be a wonderful thing. Fiction-ing again! And, in case you’re wondering, here – perhaps for the first time (these things can only happen online) – are Mark and Dirk together:
Now, looking at the two, you might not think the likeness is completely uncanny. But it doesn’t need to be. (And, perhaps, do a Google images search for the latter, and there are some better likenesses out there.) It’s the meaning construction we bring to the party which makes the party.
And that, if not making an irony of the blue tick (see above), at least highlights its limitations. Fictions are out there, and in us. It’s what we do with them, and how we adjudicate them (particularly within ourselves) that matters.
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