Over the past few weeks I’ve seen the posts on Amber Naslund’s blog and elsewhere about What I Wish People Knew About Me. Many of the posts have been very moving and insightful, and it’s great to see so many people opening up intimately not heir blogs and elsewhere online.
But I can’t shake the premise as false.
You create your identity online. Unless you have an arch-nemesis constantly creating identities as you and spreading malicious slander and libel, you’re in control of what you share. You’re in control of who you are, online and offline.
It’s a sad, sorry state of affairs we live in where you cannot be who you are online and you have to perform another identity. I know how much it sucks. I’m gay. I suffer from depression. It sucks to hide an important part of your identity from the people you care about.
Yet I’ve been able to previously write on both of those topics. If I can write about those topics on a social media satire and humor blog, then there is no reason why anyone else can’t write about what they want people to know about them unless they are a coward.
It’s OK to want people to know certain things about you. It’s terrible to feel like you are hiding. But writing “What You Wish People Knew” is a cop out on your identity. You’re better than that.
You are in control of who you are. Don’t be a wimp. Share what you want to share. Tell people what you want them to know. Stop wishing and be who you are.
The internet will be a better place for it.
Hey Jay,
I definitely advocate speaking your mind and being transparent in who you are online as well as offline.
Just wanted to show you and your readers something: https://plus.google.com/u/0/117665613028757061169/posts/U1PZufyuNHY - it’s a post by a woman whose insurance company (and her ex bf’s employer) were able to get information from her online life that they shouldn’t have taken and used but that were, to her and to anyone who could see her site, public knowledge. An illness, a cell phone number, things that we all talk about and have on various sites, however we have to take into account that there are people out there who prey on our information and can hurt us in very tangible ways.
Anyway, just wanted to share. Or overshare. ;o)
Not to say that poster is lying, or the story is untrue, but it reads weirdly to me. Something just doesn’t sit right because there’s enough details to each story to identify her if someone really wanted, yet at the same time, she’s advocating anonymity.
If you want more of my thoughts on Google+ and identity though, just wait until tomorrow.
Great points! I think in general, what people perceive of us, is a culmination of their perspective on how we think/react/talk/discuss ideas with the people around us. So, to avoid misunderstanding or “hidden identities,” we should always try our best to express ourselves better.