Being a 20 year old male, I felt like exploring the option of taking on an alternative identity. I decided to take on the identity of a 17 year old girl and observe the type of reactions and interactions I received while in the chatroom.
Before entering the chatroom I thought to myself, “Hmm… this should be easy. After all, how hard can it be to act like a teenage girl?!” I quickly located a chatroom entitled, “Flirty Teens.” When I entered the chat I realized it was going to require more than conversing with general teenage online lingo if I wanted to be convincing. I utilized the “props” in the chatroom to make more of an appearance to my audience. I chose to use a hot pink font and used the room-name “Marissa” (the name of a childhood friend). When I entered the room I merely typed, “hello!!”. I felt that overusing exclamation marks would give the impression that I have bubbly and cheery disposition. Within seconds I had various members messaging me asking about my wellbeing and other questions. Every time I replied I made special effort to not use the same lingo or typing styles I myself would usually using while in a chatroom or while instant messaging. Personally I tend to be a spelling and grammar freak; I usually spell out words completely. This time I decided to use “u,” “u’re,” and phrases such as, “hehe!!” and “thx!!!” I felt that these phrases, along with the hot pink font, gave the impression that I was a bouncy, fun-loving, and carefree teen. And according to my audience of interested guys (and girls!) it was working! I stayed in the chat room for about 30 minutes, making small chat with the attendees and acting as Marissa, the 17 year old bubbly teenage girl.
After leaving the chatroom I sat at my desk and contemplated exactly what I had learned from my experiment. I realized that it was actually quite easy to take on a new identity and persona. It was even relatively fun to deceive others and make others believe I was somebody whom I really am not. But exactly why was it so easy? Was it because of the lack of cues? Was it because of the social environment of the chatroom? I think there were a variety of factors that made deception an easy task to accomplish. I think it was partly because of the audience influenced me which traits to present. Since I was in a room with teens, I used stereotypes of teens to determine how “Marissa” should interact. Also, because I was creating a completely fictional persona, I was able to choose which of the “multiple of selves” to include. I realized I focused more on presenting the “ought self” and “ideal self” because I felt as though there was a certain way a teenage girl would/should act. I was banned from presenting the “actual self” and “true self” because I did not want any of my real traits to be displayed. It was also easy to convince others because I was in control of how I wanted to describe my appearance and my personality. I decided which cues to present and which ones should be ignored.
Though this task was somewhat fun, I think I much rather portray myself and not a fictional identity. This was definitely an opportunity to be creative, but I find it much simpler to be myself and not worry about keeping track of the lies told to the audience. Being a guy, I naturally know how other guys tend to think and communicate; however, I had no idea how to respond as a girl! Even though deceiving was easy, being a teenage girl was a bit exhausting!
-Josh Navarro
My Comments:
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assgnmt-3-you-gotta-be-pretty-fly-guy.html
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-media-selection_11.html
10 comments:
I find your experience in the chat room very similar to mine since I too chose to change my identity; I was my 21 year old boyfriend. I am curious if you ever felt the need to talk more since you were playing a girl instead of a usual more laid back and quiet guy? Also, did you ever see your "actual self" trying to break through into the conversation? Many times I found myself wanting to express my own opinion instead of "Jon's" opinion.
I am curious about what the "ought and ideal" self of this 17 year old girl you played actually was. I was hoping you would elaborate more on what traits you were presenting to fulfill this. Maybe for next time go into more detail. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable read to know you had similar experiences!
Joshua,
I really enjoyed your blog post, particularly since I chose option two and it was interesting to read a completely different experience. What I found notable about your task was that you relied on stereotypes to conduct your identity switch. I suspect I would have used this method too. However, you also mentioned that you presented the “ought self” and “ideal self” according to what you perceived as the way a teenage girl “would/should act”. This raises a rather interesting question about stereotypes: are stereotypes then sometimes a reflection of how people should behave? Or perhaps the idea of possible selves must be considered differently in the context of identity deception. Certainly we can assess the qualities associated with each self for our own identities, but it seems much more difficult to do so with a false identity – particularly when the deception involves something so inherently characteristic like gender. I imagine all of these complexities and self-presentational issues add to why it is so exhausting to really capture another persona, despite the ease of initial deception.
I did vice versa of what you did, I changed myself from a 19 year old female into a 17 year old male. I found that I tried to keep my font the same (to make it seem like I didn't care about such tiny details like that) and talked a lot about sports in hopes of impressing the girl I started to talk to in the chat room.
I also tried to represent the "ideal" and "ought" self of a teenage boy, although I didn't entirely know what that encompassed. Did you associate yourself with the girl in any way, as part of the Media Richness Theory suggests? Or did she associate herself with you (which maybe led to her having a conversation with you)?
That was an interesting post. It seems as if the lack of cues in this online space really allowed you to deceive the other users. I find it fascinating that you were able to manipulate the subtle cues such as text and grammer to influence other's perception of your persona. I chose to analyze my uses of communication medium, so it was very interesting for me to see the result of this excercise. I probably would have found similar results had I selected this option, as I also would have created my persona based on stereotypes.
Josh,
As with you, I decided to switch identities and become ‘Caligurl’. I really like the way you analyzed using exclamation marks to evoke a certain feeling. It was interesting to read that you are a spelling freak and that you needed to remind yourself not to speak the same way… I am the same and had an identical experience. In terms of your analysis, I think you did a good job describing the actual self versus the true self, although a bit more explanation would be nice. Overall, great job!
I had a very similar experience with my blog for this assignment. Except I was posing as a boy. I also found it difficult to manage my impression using the normal gender stereotypes that we use while on AIM. I am concurenttly also taking a gender and sex communication course and all of these aspects chimed into some theories we are learning. Why did you decide to use hot pink font and punctuation, while I decided to use black font and use short and blunt phrases? One idea you could perhaps look into if you ever decide to gender swap or identity switch again, is pretending to be a girl without using all of the feminine "props" we associate with girls. See if anyone becomes suspicious or doubts your "girliness"...could be an interesting experiment.
I had a very similar experience with my blog for this assignment. Except I was posing as a boy. I also found it difficult to manage my impression using the normal gender stereotypes that we use while on AIM. I am concurenttly also taking a gender and sex communication course and all of these aspects chimed into some theories we are learning. Why did you decide to use hot pink font and punctuation, while I decided to use black font and use short and blunt phrases? One idea you could perhaps look into if you ever decide to gender swap or identity switch again, is pretending to be a girl without using all of the feminine "props" we associate with girls. See if anyone becomes suspicious or doubts your "girliness"...could be an interesting experiment.
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