Friends,
It’s been a tough week. On our minds: the Atlanta shootings and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes in America. The news is hard to digest. We hope you, reader, have the support you need to make sense of it.
Emily here. Today, we’re going to talk about presenting different versions of ourselves online.
The inspiration for this topic partly comes from Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, a compilation of essays that explores online life in America. I’m going to pull a high-school-book-report move right now and give you a quote from page 8 of the book. But really, it’s a great, scene-setting quote:
“Even as we became increasingly sad and ugly on the internet, the mirage of the better online self continued to glitter. As a medium, the internet is defined by a built-in performance incentive. In real life, you can walk around living life and be visible to other people. But you can’t just walk around and be visible on the internet—for anyone to see you, you have to act.”
Indeed, one cannot simply “be” online. We have to decide which platforms to use, what to share, how to share it, when to post it, and who can see it. Really, we have to decide how to present ourselves across different platforms. This can be exhausting when you add in a desire to be “authentic” online, especially when that authenticity has to fit within the norms and features of each individual platform.
We don’t have answers, but we do have questions.
How do we decide which platform fits as the right host for our authentic moments? How do we adapt our authentic moments to fit with the audiences or features of each individual platform? Or is the moment we start thinking too deeply about all of this when we cross the threshold into “inauthentic?”
We’ll go first.
Carrie: At the moment, I’m definitely a utility platform user: I show up when it’s necessary. One hang-up is wanting to say something fresh or new, and that can take time and energy. I guess I’m on the fence about dedicating more of my time to online living, but also think it’s important and worthy as an inherent part of being a 21st-century human.
Emily: What I think about the most is how my “authentic self” is different across platforms. I am pretty sure on Facebook people think I only exist to do birthday fundraisers, get tagged in pics from my grandma, and get married. On Instagram, I might be a stay-at-home dog mom based on the exclusive content I share of my dog. Twitter is for work and media talk. TikTok I am the non-existent, old millennial lurker. Clubhouse, I just can’t figure out, ok.
Water Cooler Conversation
Carrie: Do you know about fractals, Emily? I did not. They are fascinating. I find it comforting that everything is not meant to be a straight line.
Emily: Now I see why you made an Insta account about geometric shapes.
Emily: Carrie, if you can’t get enough of this life-online talk, might I recommend a book I’m reading? It’s called Followers, by Megan Angelo. It’s a sci-fi kind of book that explores where we’ll be in ~30 years if we stay on this obsession with social media track.
Carrie: I don’t think I’m prepared for this. Instead I’m going to focus on our soft transition in post-vaccine // in-person life.
Carrie: Also, Emily, do you remember last fall when we were really into the Calm app and TV show? There’s a spoof! It’s pretty funny. Actually, it’s from May 2020, so maybe not a spoof? Relaxing Old Footage With Joe Pera.
Emily: I promise I’ll watch this later.
Carrie: And! I cannot get Lake Street Dive’s new album out of my head. There’s a song called Making Do that seems to be an open letter to current/future generations dealing with climate change. Watch the music video! It’s a creative, pandemic-era crowdsourcing effort.
Emily: Ed Markey is in the video!
Got opinions about social media and how you juggle your online personalities and audiences? You can respond directly to this email.
Your pals,
Carrie & Emily
P.S. If you’ve been enjoying this letter, will you share it with a friend?
"a picture meant for Instagram that didn’t make the cut" is pretty much my favourite caption from just about anything in the past year. This new subscriber is feeling right at home now. Thank you, leftovers are fine.
Fractals are a central scope in my way of thinking, and Mandelbrot is all about how there is always a pattern, just you must have the open mind to discover it: http://www.fractalsciencekit.com/types/classic.htm