Who you perceive me to be may be very different from how I am perceived by someone else. That’s because, apart from the fact that we perceive each other under the influence of our own individual experiences and hence individual world views, rarely do we exhibit a single identity – i.e. our entire set of personality traits and behaviours – to everyone we come into contact with. In other words, the manifestation of our identity varies from one person to another as we interact with them.
Even specific moments or circumstances define our identity. We can be private and reserved at one moment, personal and discreet in another; moody in one and outwardly social in another.
Who we are is never a matter of a single definition – or a few words of description. In fact, if we were to make a list of words that describes or defines our identity, it’s likely to be a long, sometimes similar, sometimes mismatched and occasionally contradictory list of words and phrases. Even if we were to agree that we are Indians from the perspective of a national identity, questions arise: What words define or describe us as Indians? Do we all have a single notion of what it means to be Indian? Do we all experience being Indian in absolutely the same way?
Image courtesy home.iitk.ac.in
As I dwell on this puzzle, I tend to believe that our identities are never as crystal clear as we wish them to be. Rather, they are a blur of several identities in a complex display and representation of our nature in response to others and our surroundings. They are forged by our personal experiences; and they are changeable, capable of displaying multiple facets of who we are… to others and to ourselves.
To some of us, who are conscious of this fact and are adept at juggling our identities, we can play with them to configure desired outcomes in our relationship with others.
This game of juggling identities becomes all the more exciting on the internet. With so many online interactive platforms to choose from, providing us endless opportunities for self-expression, we can create distinct identities for ourselves on each of these platforms by carefully tailoring the content we create and share with others. The online world even gives us the ability to create avatars, adopt ‘alter egos’, and remain absolutely anonymous to our closest of friends and family.
Adding to this puzzle of blurred identities is another inherent characteristic of the online world which is totally out of our control. That is, whether we like it or not, and whether it’s accurate or not, on the internet, our identities are also created by other online users when they post something about us (a blog, a comment, a mention, a photo, a video), or when they like, share and rate something of ours or about us (our own content or content created by others) online.
What’s interesting is that, on many occasions, online users who help create our online identities are complete strangers to us, and may remain anonymous to us and the rest of the world forever.
