The Reality of Online Identity

I would like to address the following question from my classmate, Weiquan's blog post: "How real then, is this online identity, although it means being able to be true to oneself, if online identities are as subjective as we made it out to be regarding the reality of the identity behind the screen and keyboard?"

In my recent explorations of net identity, I offer the conclusion that the reality of these identities is real in so far as they are our virtual realities (which are intrinsically subjective/mediated). What we need to come to grips with is that this is a reality that marks our modern day existence in a huge way. As critical as I myself am of the "reality" of our virtual reality and the constructed identities abound on the net, I am slowly realizing that virtual reality is something we have to embrace as a powerful force in our immediate reality.

In questions of reality, I now recall Plato's theory of the forms (the three forms of the couch). The virtual identities we create are like the painting of the couch, which is at a third remove from Plato's notion of a real, ideal couch. Virtual realities are our digital art form, to paint ourselves how we want to appear.

That power technologies have granted us is part of our reality. It's sort of like MTVs the Real World, where the producers and directors are able to cut and paste footage from film of so-called "real life" and reconstruct it to build an alternate television reality: one that's a little more exciting, a little more dramatic, or perhaps, in some scenarios, a little more censored.

But in the grander scheme of things, shows like the Real World are our modern day reality. Our increased taste for such shows during the late 20th and early 21st century was a precursor to our indulgence of blogging culture shortly after. Xanga, Friendster, and Myspace allowed us a space for our own confessionals. If I couldn't get chosen to be filmed spilling my guts on an MTV show, then this was good enough.

You see, our version of reality is undeniably seen through the artistic lenses of fast-paced, widely-used technology. The more we find out what's going on in the real world through mediums like Facebook, the more our reality resembles the third form of Plato's couch.

Or have we reached a new form? There's the ideal form of the couch, the physical couch, the painting of the couch, and now, the photo-shopped, online profile version of the couch?! Perhaps Plato did not foresee that there would one day be a fourth, digital form, at a further remove from his idea of reality.

And yet, this is what is so very real to us in our modern day existence. We cannot escape it. Try as I may, this blog post, like any blog posts I've ever done before,is an inextricable part of my reality, my real-life identity as well as my online identity; my real-life identity because I choose to engage with the virtual space through blogging my thoughts and sharing my identity(some people refuse to have online profiles or blogs of any sort), and my online identity because I convey messages about how I relate to the internet and net culture. And let it be known that the assertions I set forth here are very real to me. Subjective as my words are, I will maintain that the person typing on the other side of this computer screen is really me, Hana Visaya.