They're everywhere. Pictures from your summer vacation. Pictures from your best friend's birthday party. Pictures from your community-service trip abroad. Pictures you took of yourself in your high school's bathroom mirror.
They're the pictures that define our Facebook profiles, and when the online-reality is increasingly infringing upon actual reality, they're the pictures that essentially define us. The pictures on our profiles undoubtedly say something about who we are offline.
Precisely why we post these pictures, however, is uncertain. Who are we posting the pictures for, and do we tweak who we are based on our posted pictures?
Your friends were all there last night. Your friends (hopefully) know who you are, and don't need to ravage through your Facebook photos to find out. They know about you're awesomeness already, and pictures from last night's awesome party won't change that.
Still, you like the fact that the pictures are there. They compliment--if not add to--your awesome factor.
If Facebook photos are a form of expression, how much are the posters controlling that form of expression? Who do they want to be online?
When someone browses your profile for just a split second--a newly added friend, someone you just met--what do you want their "first impression" of you to be? The humanitarian? The political activist? The party animal? Admit it: you're the person who found an obscure band and put it as your Favortie Music so other people would marvel at how anti-mainstream you are.
It seems as though people ask for each other's Facebook "name" after only one brief encounter. People who I know I won't meet again friend me on Facebook. People who I knew only in kindergarten are my Facebook friends. And yet, they know who I am today via my profile.
Do we want those former friends or barely-acquaitances to know us via Facebook? (And by "know," I mean know the persona that is our Facebook.) Why do we even care?
It's a natural thing to care what others think of us. But, when we care what electronic-friends' opinions are, we're going overboard. That's narcissism right there.
No comments:
Post a Comment