Identity is what makes up a person and how they project themselves to the world. In this day and age, media plays a large role in people’s identity. Oftentimes, media influences people in their opinions, fashion choices, and lifestyle choices. When media is constantly displayed to people, telling them what to buy and how to act, after enough time people tend to feed into it. For example, on Instagram or TikTok if popular influencers are promoting a clothing brand and style, a mass amount of people will buy that item and add that to their style. This is just one example of how media influences our identity. Also with social media, people can create identities online, even if it does not align with their identity in real life. It is extremely common for people to create what seems like a perfect life on Instagram to promote their perfect identity to others.
3 thoughts on “Identity – Caroline Rowe”
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I agree, people are easily persuaded to buy a certain good because other more influential and famous creators have that particular product. In addition to promoting brands, people on social media have the chance to not only project the perfect life, but their ideal life. For example, creators like Sierra Furtado create the perfect social media accounts to make their lives seem perfect and aesthetic. However, creators such as Victoria Garrick shed light into the realistic side of social media with no filters and no editing. While this side of social media is their true identity, it is still social media and we as the viewers can never be 100% sure about anything posted online. With this all being said, social media can dramatically affect someone’s identity into being themselves online while it can also lean the other way and force people to fake their lives for societies standards.
I agree with what you’re saying about influencers on Tik Tok. They have a huge impact on the things people want to wear, eat, buy, etc. It makes sense because influence is in its name. We just don’t realize how that can have an effect on who we identify as. No matter how old or young the person is, if we see someone on Tik Tok doing something that makes them very successful, we’re going to want to do the same thing. We’ll want it regardless of what’s really going on in their life. As you said, we only see a small portion of what’s happening with them & it constantly gives us false hope. Just like how some influencers show off how great their body is and we wonder why we don’t/can’t look like that even though we’re doing the same things they’re doing.
I’d love to see you provide specific examples of influencers who have an impact on identity formation among followers. Doing so offers us an opportunity to resonate and respond to the illustration.