The physical identity I am going to choose to discuss is age. It looks there’s three main age categories that are talked about on the internet, Baby Boomers, Millenials and now Gen Z. So I’ll choose some media that defy each and then supports each.
Identity Unsupported
Identity Supported
Part 2
So I’ve seen other people make whatever avatars they want and use the internet to change who they are. I’ve watched catfish, it’s entertaining but it does highlight a certain dark side of the ways one can manipulate who they are. There’s a whole documentary on Netflix called Life 2.0 (very good watch, highly entertaining) that’s all about this online game where you create a second persona. I guess this topic could get touchy for some people though because I think a lot of us have done these sorts of things in a variety of ways. But some people are actually seriously disappointed in how their life is and if the internet can be their haven by like being a furry or whatever, I think that that’s okay but maybe sometimes it can get out of hand? I find myself fascinated by this area of the internet specifically and I think that online personas can be positive or negative. I’ve watched A LOT of videos about people’s online personas getting out of hand but it’s not always a bad thing, a lot of people from communities that way. Let me try and include some of my favorite videos about this sort of thing:
On Netflix:
Life 2.0 (About Second Life, one of the first virtual life games)
On Amazon Prime:
Fursonas (Free with prime, some positives, and extreme cases)
On Youtube:
Final Fantasy House (One of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITES but very confusing)
Sonichu (Persona went wrong this one is pretty sad)
On Hulu
Catfish
My internet persona used to constitute in some pretty weird/strange fanfictions about One Direction, Transformers, Anime etc so I guess I’m like not too open to provide details on that but not too afraid to admit it either since I was only like, 12 and didn’t know better.
However, a lot of that I did throw myself into when I was young did help me become more holistic I think. For example, you mentioned Japanese rock and I happened to listen to Japanese pop a lot when I was younger which I think really widened my tastes for music. I definitely have learned quite a bit about Japanese culture, just through my interests in Japanese pop music and anime shows. I had to do a bit more digging beyond those though since actually a lot of Japanese pop music is actually more based on western music (but definitely not all). So I think the internet definitely did shape me, in some good ways but others that were god-awful.)
I think that this was possible 20 years ago but it was on a much more personal, private level. For me, since I was so young all of this was more like an extreme game of pretending for me. I don’t think that in the past these sorts of things have gotten to the level that they have because without other people keeping the game going pretend ends pretty quickly. But children have always been playing pretend; my mother grew up in the 80’s and she and her friends made a ghostbuster club and gave themselves the same roles as the main characters. Which to an extent, this is the same sort of thing I did with my friends growing up and with others on the internet. With the internet though, some people never have to stop playing pretend because there are always people around to keep playing. It takes a certain level of self-control and reasoning to be able to stop, and maybe I had that ability but there’s a lot of people who don’t. (ex: watch those videos. They’re really unfortunate in a lot of ways.)
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