What are the images that make up my online identity?

Today, I took a journey through my Facebook. What photos have i chosen to represent myself online? Which photos construct my online identity?

The profile photo: This photo is 16 months old. It was taken at my Aunt's engagement party, i've cropped my cousins to my left out. It remains my profile photo because i like it. My face is clear of blemishes, i look happy and relaxed. 

The cover photo: This photo was taken during the winter break while road tripping in New Zealand. Where my other cover photos have featured US monuments while on exchange there, or of The Great Hall set up in exam mode many decades ago while i was studying for my exams, this photo is just fun. I chose it to be my cover photo because its fun and happy. 

The album cover photo: This is the only photo i haven't selected, it's been selected for me (ie. the most recently added photo of me). The photo is of a few pieces of furniture - odd? Very. But what very few people could be able to tell from the photo is of the story behind it. When i was packing up my apartment last year upon nearing the end of my semester exchange in North Carolina, i gave my housemate my black lamp. Boring right? This photo, however, is of my housemate's new apartment and she's tagged me to show that she's still using my lamp. Yay!

So they're the 3 photos people come across when they look at my Facebook profile. Are they representative of me? Sort of. They show that i've been travelling - a Giant Kiwifruit one could assume is a tourist attraction. My profile photo shows a happy and relaxed self. Is that me? Currently no. At the moment i'm tired, stressed and my skin's not terribly clear. Why haven't i taken a photo of myself of that? Because i don't want people to see me like that, or think of me as grumbling. I don't want to grumble, although tired and stressed i know it will soon pass and why drag down the mood of an online identity that shows me happy and enjoying myself. 

But I wonder why we do this? Why do we only choose the pretty photos of us, the one's we show us as happy. I know you asked this Anna in your post. I wonder if this is something we should explore? On what grounds do we choose our profile photos? Perhaps how do we construct our online selves in relations to photos? I'm sure this can be put together in nicer words, but it's a good question. 

The humble photograph: Creating authenticitity.

The internet has created a new realm of identity, in the same way that one would limit how much they share in a social setting, an online presence now enables individuals to regulate how much they share or even what they share. In addition, social networking sites with the ability to create a profile page, select profile photos and share interests, mark their visits to physical locations, share their thoughts through 'status updates' etc. all contribute to this constructed version of self. But what role do those photos have? 

Anna, i love that quote: "We don't trust words because they're words, but we trust pictures because they're pictures. That's crazy," because it's totally true. I file through Twitter and Facebook reading status updates or even see the attendance marked on events, i don't trust it. The human word can be broken. Nothing says "Sally Mitchem is now in a relationship with David Carlton" more than a photo of them lip locked at a recent party. Similarly nothing says, "Jennifer Pennington is now engaged to Jeremy Ponsonby" more than a photo of Jen's engagement ring. We trust photos, it gives tangibility to a scene or a situation. 

For example, a quick scroll through my Facebook page can tell the audience a few things: 

•  I'm organising a Christian conference. 

• I love Instagram.

• I went to a Hen's Party last weekend. 

The reason why i think this is interesting is because a profile page creates an identity - it's a record of who i am, what i do and what i think. Without photos, is any of that legitimate?

I could post a status saying i'm at the front of a moshpit starring right into the eyes of my favourite artist OR i could post a photo taken on my phone showing that i'm actually right there. Which one would you trust more? Me? The photo, for sure. 

Photos have this sense of authenticitity to them. 

Trusting pictures because they're pictures

Every day, in my Facebook news feed, I'll see countless photos: from Instagrammed shots of mouth-watering dinners, to new profile and cover pictures, and of course, multiple albums posted by friends seemingly just to make me jealous (hint to my Facebook friends: stop uploading albums entitled 'Europe Summer 2012 YAY!' and posting them to all your Aussie friends in the middle of winter.) 

I see these photos every day, but hardly ever do I stop to question them. Wow, that dinner looks amazing, I think to myself, cursing my dad's specialty of pasta-with-sauce-from-a-packet; but it doesn't often occur to me that without the Instagram filters, it probably wouldn't be that special. Wow, she looks like a model in that profile picture, I think to myself, vowing to increase my diet and exercise levels tenfold, and ignoring the clear influence of photoshop on the image. And although I know from personal experience that awesome holiday photos don't always accurately reflect how much you're enjoying a trip, it's easy to forget this when I'm huddled under four blankets scrolling through photos of my friends island hopping around the Mediterranean. 

"We don't trust words because they're words, but we trust pictures because they're pictures. That's crazy."

The tendency for people to view photographs as accurate representations of reality is discussed by Scott Rosenberg in this 2009 article. Rosenberg quotes documentary photographer Pedro Meyer, who says, "I think it's very important for people to realise that images are not a representation of reality."Why does he say this? Because images, just like words, can be manipulated. Images, just like words, are selective.  "We don't trust words because they're words," Meyer says, "but we trust pictures because they're pictures. That's crazy. It's our responsibility to investigate the truth, to approach images with care and caution."

I think this particularly rings true with the practice of image sharing across social networks. People share photos of their lives, or images of things they like, and this contributes to their online persona, a constructed version of the self. We don't post photos of ourselves when we're by ourselves, squashed on a train, upset after a long, hard day. We post photos of us having a great time with friends. We don't post pictures of our cluttered bedrooms or dirty streets. We post images of pretty objects and beautiful landscapes. Through images, we share certain things, and not others, to project a particular image of ourselves.

As a group, we're all really fascinated with this idea, and that's why, out of all our many ideas, we decided to narrow our project to this:

How is image sharing affecting/shaping/contributing to our sense of self? 

Through this blog, we're all going to go on individual image sharing journeys to explore this idea. Nicola is going to explore instagram; Mel will be exploring facebook and the profile pic, cover photo, and tagging; Paul will be looking at photo editing and sharing with iPhoto, Ash will be looking at mummy blogging and how many babies born today will have photos all over the internet of them at all ages by the time they're our age; and I'll be taking a little journey into the wonderful world of tumblr. But for now, goodnight!