Social Networks

What’s different in the online world of socializing from the everyday contact we have with other people?  In her article “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites” author Danah Boyd described that whereas the human body characterizes our identity in everyday dealings, on social media where the body is not visible or inter-reactive in real time, “people need to write themselves into being” (Dines 411).  

In addition, Boyd asserted that social networks are “arenas for formation and enactment of social identities” that individuals use to “work through how to present themselves” (Dines 415).  Using this, I asked myself how my friends positioned their online persona. Investigating my friends’ Facebook photos, I considered how they shaped and presented their online social identity.  When doing so, I asked myself ‘What does this person want me to know about them from looking at their pages?’ and ‘What impression is made from their pages?’  It was startling to me that, after viewing many of them, how much their online identities trended.  Here’s what I found.

Women’s photos show lively facial expressions (smiling, giggling, excited, energetic) and poses that are playful and humorous, portraying them as feisty and fun-loving, enjoying the company of other attractive women and men – especially images of gatherings where people were dressed-up at formal occasions.  It’s almost like women can’t be seen with non-attractive, unfashionable people because that would expose them to being less appealing.  Women’s Facebook photos also seemed to want to validate their physical appeal:  their hair was styled, make-up applied, clothing was fashionable with matching shoes and accessories.
  
It showed the pressure for them to conform to idealized body images and perhaps to mirror the women they see in advertising.  This reminded of Rosalind Gill’s article “SuperSexualize Me!” where the author talked about how advertising encourages the male gaze by creating “representations of idealized beauty” (Dines 286) and evidencing the “playfulness, freedom and above all, choice (Dines 280).  My female friends’ Facebook photos reinforced Gill’s premise of how “socially constructed ideals of beauty are internalized and made [their] own” (Dines 282) on their Facebook photos.

Compared to this, the guys Facebook photos showed primarily their camaraderie during physical activities –posting photos of themselves in-tandem with a group of friends, frequently enjoying and/or participating in a sporting event.  Guys most often post photos of themselves doing something deemed masculine: holding up soccer trophies, rooting at a sporting event, competing in Tough Mudder.  They do not appear to wear fashionable clothing, mostly in comfortable clothes that fit the activity. Unlike women, the guys seemed unafraid to look socially awkward or unkempt on Facebook, posting pictures for example from events where they are dressed in comedic outfits or being disheveled and dirty, having just completed some physical exertion.  This is confirmation that it’s more socially acceptable to be clumsy and messy if you’re a guy, but you have to be doing manly things.  Another interesting trend was that there are no whimsical photos of guys on Facebook:  No guys at the zoo.  No guys an art gallery – guys do go to these places, but don’t want their online persona to show it because it does not conform to a masculine image.

In addition to photos, Facebook pages are meant to summarize the people they represent through their ‘likes’ of music, movies, TV, games and books.  Here, I would agree with Boyd as these are “partially defined by themselves and partially defined by others” (Dines 416) because people characterize themselves within narrow bands of acceptability.  For example, music that my friends ‘like’ on Facebook were limited by current popularity – no one’s choice of music included classical works even though some people likely know and like works by Mozart and Chopin.  Similarly, movie ‘likes’ for the women included chick flicks and action films for the guys.  But none of the guys listed The Blind Side even though it’s a football film.  Also, no one posted photos of their parents or young siblings – not a family photo to be found.  Why?  Don’t we all have families?  We define ourselves by our likes, but only within the boundaries of our generation and our gender.  My research confirmed what Danah Boyd asserted in Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites that “People have more control online – they are able to carefully choose what information to put forward…” (Dines 411). 

What does this say about my Facebook friends, who are likely representative of my generation?  First, we want to fit into the structures because, unlike the teens in Boyd’s article, we possess greater knowledge, having already “learned society’s rules …[through] trial and error, validation and admonishment” (Dines 416).  From this, we understand society’s norms and rules, and are careful to stay within the collectively-set boundaries – avoiding publicity on social networks of aspects of our lives, like parents and siblings, who are in the forbidden zone. Also, we know where the common ground lies by gender and follow it closely – infatuated by beauty for women and confident in physical prowess for guys. 

In “Why Youth (Heart) Social Networks,” Danah Boyd used a scenario of someone tripping on the curb and bearing the brunt of visual and mediated audiences (Dines 410). Yet, on Facebook we are uniquely capable of guarding ourselves from ‘tripping,’ avoiding contempt from others in our online space and precluding embarrassment by allowing online viewers to observe only what we want them to see.  Facebook allows us to conceal ourselves, positioning our image so that others may only witness our ‘likes’ from what we choose for them to see.  Do our Facebook pages reflect who we truly are or are we merely projecting the socially-acceptable norms that our social media friends expect to see?  From my research, clearly it’s the latter.

Works Cited

“Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?” ProCon. 24 March 2015. Web. 15 April 2015.   http://socialnetworking.procon.org/#pro_con