On An intro to this blog, Daniel Hunninghake states that a person’s identity can “face anonymity”, similarly to a culture dying out, if one cannot change or adapt with the changing environment (i.e. internet). It strikes me as odd, to think of my identity of becoming anonymous due, solely, to inadequacies of adapting to the “ebb and flow of the digital world”. As a person without a facebook, myspace, blog, or twitter page, I would like, to some degree, refute Hunninghake’s argument. On the one hand, I agree that the internet can help change or reshape a person’s identity. On the other hand, I do not agree that the internet can kill a person’s identity. To claim a person’s identity is anonymous is to claim that the person does not have metaphysical attributes that make them individual or different from the rest of the world. Take for example, the young “actor” in Numa Numa. Many years ago, that man established an identity for himself through a YouTube video. If he fell off the face of the “internet planet” and never again made another post, or video, he would still have an internet identity. How then, can a person lose their identity by not adapting? Is it realistic to relate a culture dying out or assimilating, to a person’s identity becoming anonymous?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Can my Identity truly die out or "face anonymity"?
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You should post this on Daniel's blog! It's true that he is interested in identity contruction as it happens on the internet, and without an internet presence, you yourself don't really participate in that arena of identity contruction. But he would also say that the identity we have in our face-to-face encounters is also constructed and contextual and, I presume, vulnerable to extinction through disuse or changing contexts (are you the same person you were when you were 10?).
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting question, Amber -- one I think warrants raising on his blog.