Assignment: What do you reveal and distort in your Myspace/Facebook page?
For this assignment I did not have to create Myspace page or a Facebook page because I already had both. I went to each of my pages and really tried to look at them with an outsiders eye. My goal was to see what my pages reveal or distort about who I am.
What did my pages reveal?
Both of my pages revealed that I am a 26 year old caucasian women who lives in Eugene, OR with my husband and my young daughter. My Myspace highlights my Christian faith with the background that emphasizes how I see my God as a father. My interests focus on my passion for traveling and I have a map of the places I have been posted on my Myspace page. My Facebook highlights my love of reading and traveling too. The pictures that I have chosen to put on both of my pages focuses on my family and friends, as well as the places I have traveled to. Mostly the pictures of my daughter Eliana, but a few are of my husband too. I have very few of myself, except for those that show other countries like India and Nigeria.
What did my pages distort?
Myspace allows you to put a song on your page. My song is a Christian rap song by Le Crae, so I guess people might think that I enjoy rap in general if they don’t listen to the lyrics, but it is really only Christian rap that I listen to. Other than that I am not too sure. I am pretty truthful when it comes to who and what I am. I do not feel as though I need to distort anything. This may be because I am already married and am not looking for a mate…this seems to be a huge reason why people choose to distort their self-image. Myspace does ask for body type and I put average, though I have a little more baby weight to lose.
Wood and Smith say that, ” manipulating one’s identity is nothing new to Western culture, and, indeed, neither are many of the insecurities associated with the practice,” (pg. 57). I guess if I really looked at it from a very critical standpoint I could say that my pages give the illusion that my family and I are totally happy all the time and that there are never any arguments or conflicts that happen. I suppose most people do not generally post pictures of awful things in their lives though I guess they could blog about their frustrations, I just choose not to air out my business in a public forum. Anyways, besides the pictures of the slums in India I do not have any pictures up of total “reality” as I know it. This would probably be the biggest distortion.
Overall this has been quite an assignment. I enjoyed having to take an outsider’s stance and perspective on my own life.
I think it is very interesting how we always post pictures of our happy selves and only (usually) say good things about ourselves or our family members on our Facebook or MySpace pages. It does create a very picturesque, idyllic scenario. It’s easy to look at others online and feel bad about our own lives, but we do it ourselves, as well. You also had a good point about the Christian rap. It’s easy to make generalizations about people by their pages with just a limited amount of information.