Google and Facebook would have you believe that you’re a mirror, but in fact, we’re more like diamonds. The portrait of identity online is often painted in black and white. Who you are online is who you are offline. That rosy view of identity is complemented with a similarly oversimplified view of anonymity. People think of anonymity as dark and chaotic. But human identity doesn’t work like that online or offline. We present ourselves differently in different contexts, and that’s key to our creativity and self-expression. It’s not who you share with, it’s who you share as. Identity is prismatic.
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Chris’ comments made me think of Vimeo. It is now considered a video-hosting alternative to YouTube, but that wasn’t initially, and still isn’t for many people, its core value. What attracted our early users was the draw of the social community, and video was the most effective medium for expressing ourselves and observing each other. Videos were social gestures we exchanged; we made them for each other specifically. We crafted identities, and fell in love with each other, through video.
