My online identity has always been a matter of linked profiles, cataloging different aspects of my life.
Is this a fixed identity? To a degree it is, but what I love about my online identity is how fluid it is. It grows and changes just as I grow and change. Is my Livejournal profile the same as it was when I first signed up in high school? Certainly not! My Myspace profile has changed many times, as I like new bands, read new books, and as my interests and priorities develop or disappear. Last FM gives you an up-to-the-minute profile of what I am listening to, which bands I've listened to the most over a period time (this week, this month, the last 6 months), and my favourite tracks. My current charts include bands such as Los Campesinos, Cloudcult, Beulah, Okkervil River and The Hold Steady, most of these bands (many of my favourite bands) I've only discovered over the past few years.
Of course each of these online identities are constructed to a degree. I choose each time I update my profile which bands, books or films I want people to associate me with, they are never an exhaustive list of what I listen to and read. I list interests such as baking and summer dresses to create a romantic image of myself (although actually these two things a significant parts of my life!). I don't mention that I actually enjoy going running for exercise, or that I sometimes read cosmo, secretly love Hilary Duff or that I spend way too long doing my hair. These things don't fit with the identity I've created, so they get edited out.
2 comments:
Hilary Duff movies are my secret weakness.
I love the way you have alluded to you passion for music. Ive always considred music choice to be jelously and fiercely defended only after religion (if you are in that way inclined) by most people. In many ways music shoice serves as an extension of the ego.
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