Creating an Identity
by Ashley
Thinking about Erika Pearson’s All the World Wide Web’s s Stage: The Performance of Identity of Online Social Networks, I can’t help but think about other people I know and how they’re pretending to be somebody they’re not online. And I’ll be the first to talk smack about those people, but it just occurred to me, however, that I’ve been doing something just as bad!
Recently I’ve gotten tired of dating people from Vancouver. Everyone I meet seems lame and boring (I’m not that exciting, either, so I should really shut up). But I still wanted the excitement of knowing that someone wants to date me, so I kept online dating but I changed my location to Brooklyn, New York.
I’ve been pretending to be a Brooklynite for about a month now and it’s absolutely wonderful. Everyone in Brooklyn is so much cooler than I imagined and better looking than I imagined they would be. The only problem I’m having now is trying to make up excuses as to why I can’t hang out!
The more I tell you about this, the more I realize this is actually really weird and Catfish-y. Have ya’ll seen that “documentary”?
Do you find this small deception to be problematic at all? I have seen “Catfish” and I wonder if small deceptions, like location, are accepted, as long as you don’t develop strong ties with people or take advantage of people.
I remember watching “Catfish,” I think it was a movie and it’s also a tv show? Any way, that’s an interesting approach you’ve taken to online dating by changing your location – I can definitely tell that it would be tricky to respond to someone’s hangout and constantly making excuses could get tiresome. Do you plan to continue with the profile or maybe start slowing down and not responding as much?