Social Media Wrap-Up: Jumping on the Bandwagon for Change

We’ve looked at blogging and emails and surfing and chatting,
Gaming and YouTube and SecondLife and passing.
But do you recall…the most famous social medium of all?

Facebook the popular website
Had a very big fan club
And if you ever saw it
You would join it like a shlub…

Honestly, everyone, I think we’ve talked a lot about Facebook. But a parting shot is necessary, I think, to bring the whole social media craze together.

That’s right, ladies and gents, it’s a social media wrap-up.

This is where I finally give Facebook credit for something—it’s ability to reinvent the social networking site all over again. Truth is, Facebook isn’t all that ground-breaking. You might recall its predecessor, MySpace, or its forerunner, Friendster. I’m told no one ever uses these social networking sites anymore (usually in a slightly puzzled and often deprecatory tone of voice) because they’re just “like, so last week.” Not so with Facebook.

Or is it?

I stumbled across a hilarious little video which seems to capture the spirit of the age of social media. It seems to suggest that Facebook, like MySpace and Friendster before it, is on its way out, soon to be ousted from online supremacy by SecondLife.

Whether this is true remains to be seen, but it brings up an interesting point when it comes to identity: mutability. Really, it’s just a fancy-shmancy word for change. Hey, Obama advocated it, David Bowie sang about it, and no one ever has it for a five dollar bill. Must be important, right?

Here’s the deal. As human beings, we’re always subject to change. Every experience we have, every choice we make, and every person we meet has some influence on the way we do things. The changes may be big or small, but the fact of the matter is, your identity is in a constant state of flux that can change at any given moment.

The same is true online. Our identities change with the times. The you represented yourself on friendster might not be the way you represented yourself on MySpace, or Facebook, or SecondLife. This not only reflects the differences in your chosen medium of social networking, but also the differences in you as a cyber-presence. You’ve grown and matured online just as you’ve grown and matured in real life. Your tastes have changed. You have new friends, new influences. You’re a new you.

Maybe we shouldn’t look at the constant mutability in social networking media as a bad thing. Maybe we should see it as progress. Maybe we should see it as a reflection of our growing maturity and sophistication online.

Or maybe, just maybe, we should see it for what it really is—change for the sake of change.

What do you think? Are social media reinventing themselves because of demand, or are they in pursuit of the Almighty dollar? Leave a comment and let me know.

The Ethics of E-dentity: The Language of “Ought”

Ah, ethics. Those pesky things your mother tried to instil in you at a young age. Those things keeping our civilization from turning into a giant free-for-all. Those things keeping us from indulging in our basest desires at the expense of the rest of the world. Yeah, ethics.

In case you’ve forgotten, the language of ethics is basically one filled with “ought tos” and “should dos.” It concerns itself with determining how people ought to behave in a given society.

We can consider cyberspace to be one vast society in which people must negotiate acceptable behaviour. How we choose to present ourselves may have something to do with ethics, with a feeling that we should be a certain way online.

There are several different approaches to ethics that we can use to look at ethics in cyberspace. A few we can think about are:

1. ethical egoism—this approach suggests that some behaviour is ethical as long as it results in some benefit for oneself. The ultimate “centre of the universe” mentality, it does not take into account the effect of one’s actions on others.
   
2. utilitarian—this approach suggests that behaviour is ethical that results in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This kind of ethicist uses “ethical calculus” to determine whether the ends justify the means.
   
3. deontological—this approach suggests that behaviour is ethical if there is some logically implied moral duty to commit the action. This kind of ethicist doesn’t consider the consequences of one’s actions but rather the intentions behind them.

In terms of cyberspace, the ethical egoist rules. Due in large part to the amount of anonymity on the Internet, people can get away with presenting themselves in any way they want. This is one of the reasons why passing is so prevalent—Internet users see some immediate benefit to them, so they ignore the possible repercussions on others. They see an opportunity to try out a new identity, but don’t realize that the people they build relationships online trust in this online identity and feel betrayed when that identity turns out to be a sham. Ethical egoists are not unheard of online, but they are certainly not as common as utilitarians.

The utilitarian approach is the first one that comes to mind when thinking of ethics. Ihe Internet was largely build on utilitarian principles, such as the idea that information should be available to everyone so that everyone may benefit from it. While it is more obvious in real-life situations than in cyberspace, many still unconsciously adopt a utilitarian code of ethics when it comes to interacting with people online. Their identities tend to stay very close to real life, and they do not represent themselves as someone they are not. They avoid passing and misrepresentation in favour of the truth or the choice not to share some information.

Finally, deontologists are also quite rare online. They would consider actions to be ethical only if they can be logically maintained for everyone, which would be virtually impossible online. The Internet is such a vast, diverse community that no one could ever agree on what constitutes moral actions. Cyberspace incorporates many cultures with different values and beliefs—finding a way to determine ethical actions online using a deontological perspective would be very difficult.

The take home here is that there are several different ways of looking at what is “ethical.” Just because you don’t agree with some online behaviours doesn’t necessarily mean they are morally wrong.

Hey, with this system, you could even make a case for pornography! I’m just sayin’…

Online Identity? I’ll Pass, Thank You…Part II: Race

Last time, we talked about the phenomenon of “passing” for a different gender online. Today, we’re going to talk about another form of “identity tourism”—racial passing.

If you’ve ever wondered how people of a different ethnicity are treated, it’s sometimes difficult to walk a mile in their shoes. After all, we can’t all be like Robert Downey Jr.’s character Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder, nonchalantly donning an elaborate new racial identity as one would a new coat. The only viable resource we have as ordinary citizens is the Internet. Online, we can assume any identity we want, presenting ourselves as members of a different race through our habits, our words, and through the information we choose to distribute about ourselves.

I stumbled across a recent blog post concerned with whether racial identity is a product of ourselves or those around us. My first thought was that this idea misses the point. Our identities do not define how we act—our actions define our identities. This is an important point to consider, especially regarding online identities, because in order to “pass” for another race, we have to avoid falling into stereotypes that may or may not have any basis in truth.

In her book Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet, Lisa Nakamura examines the impact that telecommunications technologies like the Internet can have on identity. She writes:

“While telecommunications and medical technologies can challenge some gender and racial stereotypes, they can produce and reflect them as well.” (Nakamura 4)

So not only does the Internet allow us to challenge stereotypes by providing a medium in which to express ourselves, it also reflects the stereotypes we already have by allowing us to perform the kind of actions we think those of another race would perform. But there is a downside to this kind of freedom. Nakamura notes that:

“Rather than ‘honouring diversity’…performances online used race and gender as amusing prostheses to be donned and shed without ‘real life’ consequences.” (Nakamura 13-14)

Racial passing online can be seen as a kind of social experiment that we can try on our own, when we feel like it, without affecting our day-to-day lives. The anonymity of the Internet ensures that any slip-ups or embarrassments cannot be attributed to us, making it easier and more appealing for ‘identity tourists’ to poke a toe into the swimming pool of another racial identity without having to jump right in. But Nakamura also points out that such glimpses into the lives of others may not be valuable as learning experiences since those who pass are unlikely to experience any quantifiable discrimination, leading to a potentially false impression that minority groups may not have it all that bad.

For these minority groups, passing may be an escape. Another aspect of racial passing has to do with a feeling of deep-seated inequity, a feeling that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

“…passing is often driven by harsh structural cultural inequities, a sense that it really would be safer, more powerful, and better to be of another race and gender.” (Nakamura 31)

But is passing really necessary on the part of these minority groups? After all, when we think of the stereotypical computer-user, we usually think of the geeky, socially awkward computer nerd. The white boy with copious amounts of facial hair, glasses, and pasty skin. As Nakamura notes, our ability to choose our own online identities is often an illusion, because:

“…in the absence of racial description, all players are assumed to be white.” (Nakamura 38)

Maybe that blog post I mentioned earlier is right. Maybe racial identity is more of a product of those around us. It’s a rather bleak thought, isn’t it?

Online Identity? I'll Pass, Thank You…Part I: Gender

The Internet is largely anonymous, allowing users to communicate and interact with each other usually without having to account for these actions in real life. This means that the Web is a place where many people feel that they may experiment with identities in cyberspace that they would never consider in real life.

Let’s look at, for example, the controversial 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry. The film explores the struggle of Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena, a biological female who identified as male. She decided to dress and “act” like a man, presenting herself in such a manner despite the extreme difficulties she faced. Her story ultimately ended in tragedy, but for a short while she was able to be herself, or rather, act in a way that fit in with her desired identity.

The real-life implications of living a trans-gendered lifestyle are often frightening. We are not beyond bigotry and condemnation in this day and age, especially when it comes to alternative lifestyles which have not yet gained a degree of tolerance in the mainstream.

In her book Life on the Screen (for an online summary of her chapter on gender passing, click here), Sherry Turkle comments that:

“In the physically embodied world, we have no choice but to assume responsibility for our body’s action.” (Turkle 254)

This is to say that in real life, our bodies and the biological sex they imply dictate how we interact with others. We are expected to act in accordance with the social norms associated with our sex, acting in such a way as to reflect the gender role of our sex. The anonymous nature of the Internet, however, allows users to don the trappings of another gender without the real-world consequences.

This type of trans-gendered activity online is called “passing”. The Internet offers countless opportunities to pass. Anything that requires a user profile could potentially be used as a forum for exploration into another gender, however, to do so requires more than just setting gender to “male” or “female” (or in some cases “other”). Turkle notes that:

“To pass as a woman for any length of time requires understanding how gender inflects speech, manner, the interpretation of experience. Women attempting to pass as men face the same kind of challenge.” (Turkle 212)

But passing is more than just understanding and applying the differences between men and woman. While Turkle acknowledges that passing can result in self-discovery, she does not delve into the motivations of those who choose to pass online, nor does she talk about what their decision to pass may mean.

But is passing just a form of online fraud? It really depends. For example, the desire to pass may stem from curiosity about the opposite sex, an attempt to be funny or impress your friends or play a trick, or to try out a new identity without facing the condemnation or unwelcome curiosity of others. This is especially true during adolescence, when any deviation from the norm is seen as shocking and taboo.

Looking at these motives, we can see that while many may try to pass for a while, any sustained attempt at gender passing online may imply an identification with the opposite sex that may speak more to suppressed desires or gender identities than mere curiosity. This is not a bad thing. Exploration is one of the ways we learn and grow, and may have the effect of establishing sympathy or a shared understanding between the genders, increasing tolerance and cooperation.
Theorists today need to open up more of a conversation regarding online passing and talk about the implications—both positive and negative—it may have on Internet users. Perhaps by taking away the stigma of online passing, we can also make it easier for trans-gendered people to find acceptance in real life.

Tune in next time for the second part of the passing phenomenon—race.

Also, don’t forget to participate in the poll on the sidebar, and as always, leave a comment and tell me what you think.

For further reference, see:

Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1995.

Formatting fixed 20/01/08.