“I just try to be genuine.” Through my interviews for the Online Identity Project, I am getting a fascinating insight into what it means for different people to be authentic online: how they perceive their own authenticity, how they act authentic, and whether they think that true authenticity is even possible. As our offline and online […]
When media theory pioneer Marshall McLuhan dramatically announced in the mid 1960s that the medium, not the content it relayed, was the message, he set in motion a conversation about how technology shapes who we are that has lasted until this day. Whether it was movies, advertising, the telephone or even a light bulb (McLuhan […]
Which is bigger, the earth or the sun? This is just one of the hundreds of questions OkCupid users can answer in order to increase the accuracy of the dating site’s algorithm. Each question is multiple choice, requires you to also select which answer you’d hope your ideal match would pick and must be ranked in terms of importance. […]
From the moment a user signs up to OkCupid, one of the world’s largest online dating services, he or she is asked to select a unitary and specific identity: female/male and straight/gay/bisexual. This insistence on a singular identity is not unique to OkCupid of course. Social media, online shopping sites and media providers all require the user to validate certain […]
Some thoughts about identity, online. Some netizens project their offline identity into online spaces. They mirror their so-called real lives by using their real names, writing factual and descriptive profiles, posting photos of themselves with family members, in common daily situations. Others create new identities. They use nicknames or pseudonyms, limit information about themselves to words which are […]
A friend recently complained that Topshop knew exactly which pair of pants she’d looked at online at work, then advertised them on Facebook when she logged on at home. I mentioned algorithms to her, the ones which are at work every moment she browses the web, recording her every move and determining advertising campaigns for countless brands […]
