Identity, which is formed by people’s subjective experiences and cultural background, shows a desire position that people want in society. As people change from consumer to creator on social media, everyone can participate in the constructions of the social mainstream. However, is new media reflect the real situation of race, gender, class or just show people’s ideal situation. This made me think about an occupation: artist. Identity is an important factor that can decide their famous degree. Nowadays, most artists have a management team that helps them to display an identity online to attract more fans. Their blog, interview, and outfits are all arranged by their teams. How their identity show in front of people depends on the data of what most people like and need today. According to the data, they can use the key information to resonate with more people. At this time, nobody cares who they are, people just know what they do online. Therefore, is the identity shows online actually is a reflection of people’s ideal image in “Utopia” produced by data?
4 thoughts on “Identity-Zoey Zeng”
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I found it interesting how you described popular creator’s identity that they project to their online viewers. I agree that the identity they choose to display can be twisted to resonate with more people in order to benefit themselves and their “brand”. I think that the word identity can have more meanings now with the rise of social media and technology. The identity that is shown by a person online may be far different from their identity in real life.
As a consumer of a variety of artists and their online content (including social media), I can sometimes feel like I really “know ” these artists. However, you make a good point in saying that a lot of an artist’s media is really a “brand” set up by a management team. You also stated how an artist’s identity may be shaped based on the data of what is currently popular. It is interesting to think that this formation of identity goes both ways. An artist can influence the identity of their fans while at the same time their fans can influence their identity, or at least it’s superficial manifestation in the form of their branding.
I loved your example of people going from consumer to creator. This example was not something that came to mind when I think of identity and was a very creative take on it.
I was confused about one of your points though. In your post, you are making a very broad assertion that artists are people whose identity’s are hidden or misrepresented online through other people who manage their accounts. Most artist such as photographers, animators, painters, and other artistic crafts found on social media have no problem expressing their identity, no matter what platform they are on. However, I believe you are referring to celebrities as artists, which would make your statement about others managing their accounts more accurate.
Good work providing a specific example. Curating online identity is an important aspect that raises questions about the identity we’re seeing in media. Is the media persona the same as the actual person? Is there a “real” identity that can be contrasted with a mediated identity? Or is identity always mediated to an extent?