Assignment #3: Acting like a man is harder than I thought

This weekend I entered a chat room and attempted to identity switch. Instead of being myself, a 20 year old female, I pretended to be a 20 year old male. I found it was very difficult to pretend to be someone else, it seemed unnatural and contrived. I entered a chat room full of other college students, men and women included. I had to focus on every comment I made to make sure I was "talking like a male". I was not sure exactly how to act like a male, but some things I did differently to manage my impression included not using smiley faces as often, saying words like "yo" and "dude", and making crude side comments. I felt I did pretty good job managing my impression. No one questioned whether or not I was really a 20 year old male. After I got the hang of things, I began to realize how easy it is for people to identity switch and take on a different persona. Once you start to get into it, it becomes second nature.

The fact that I was in a chat room definitely affected how I formed my persona. I was able to use the self-presentation tactics of impression management to decide how to act like a male in the specific psychological space I was in, which was a chat room. For instance, my self-descriptions were different than if I had been writing a profile or an "about me". I had to be very short and concise..."20 year old male". I did not have the opportunity to describe myself more in depth and present my complete self. However, I was able to use attitude expressions to convey to the other people in the chat room what my personality was like. I talked about how I loved hip hop music. From this simple statement, the other people in the chat room could already make some judgments on what my attitude was like. I had a hard time using nonverbal behaviors in the chat room while I was trying to act like a man. I did not want to use smiley faces or a lot of punctuation, because that seemed feminine to me. I thought if I used more blunt phrases I would seem more like a male. The social associations tactic was probably the easiest to portray through the chat room. I told people that I went to Cornell University, so immediately they think that I am an intelligent and middle or upper class. I also said I was pre-med, which also made them think that I was smart and focused. I talked about some of the groups I am involved in on campus, like the Haitian Student Association. From this statement they could assume that I was a black 20 year old male. The hardest tactic to use in the chat room while managing my impression was sets, props, and lighting. In the chat room I chose not to send anyone pictures, or use any outside props, which limited how much I could use this tactic. The one set, prop, or lighting aspect that I could use was the font color. I changed my normally pink font, to a black one so I would seem more masculine.

At first it seemed very difficult to act like a male in a chat room. I was not sure exactly how to portray myself as a man. I had to ask myself how do men and women interact differently online. All of the things I thought were feminine I had to remove from my interactions. After a while it was easy to act like a man. It was almost like a role-playing game. The assignment overall made me much more aware of how easy it is for people to pretend to be some one else on the internet as long as they are aware of their impression management and how the psychological space can affect it.