I tend to think a key word going unsaid here is narcissism.
Consciously monitoring your identity, and wanting other people to see it, is narcissistic. *Even* if the desire to not just be seen as one part of you, but every part. That's still an identity of sorts.
Also, here: "I know someone with a dozen secret finstas. I discovered that when they post on their main public account, they would spend hours logging in and out of their finstas to like and comment on their original post to boost the algorithm. This process in itself is not an issue. If you’re going to play the status games, play them well. But what was more puzzling was when I asked them about it, they denied it and had a meltdown"
Through a narcissism lens this isn't puzzling, right? The reason they are doing all the liking/commenting to support their identity as 'cool person'. And you pointing that out is exposing that they aren't their identity, which of course gets a violent reaction, because it's their goal to be seen how they want to be seen.
Which takes me to the main point: no one is their identity. Even this is a form of defense mechanism against that:
'We are forced to pick a singular lane and consistently craft our personal brand, package ourselves into a product and appease the repetitive, insatiable appetite of the algorithm.'
I agree people think this but ... forced? Easier than consciously admitting how much we want to be seen as our personal brand, I suppose.
I’m intentionally trying not to label people here in this piece. I think there’s diagnosable narcissism, and then there’s narcissistic tendencies that we’re conditioned on at a cultural level. But I don’t think either are deterministic within who a person fully is. And I think sometimes we default to assigning labels to others that are not ourselves, that doesn’t fully get to the bottom of how people struggle with a lack of fluency in how to explore and express themselves.
A lot of this is a reflection on how we can be less rigid in how we see ourselves and others through identity labels, and instead get better at holding multiple truths at once. I don’t know that I fully agree with that no one is their identity, but I think a different way I would try to articulate it is, how do we create more and better space for multiple identities and labels to exist within one entity, and at the same time, not be limited within the perceived definitions and boundaries of each individual identity or label?
I also don't mean DSM narcissism, agree it's more granular than that. But if you do narcissistic things, you are narcissistic. It's not the end of the world, but it is common. That's what Freya India's piece is about, no?
'how do we create more and better space for multiple identities and labels to exist within one entity, and at the same time, not be limited within the perceived definitions and boundaries of each individual identity or label?'
I guess what I'm saying is the that is bad business too^. Define yourself by the things you do (because that's who you are to other people anyway). Any further label or tuning of that is impression-management of the self, which, well .. doesn't seem to be going great for people
Part of what you’re saying is making me think about (and you might already be onto this) - there’s been some interesting explorations about experience-based identity formation vs affinity-based identity formation. Katherine Dee in particular has written about this - you might be into it.
I tend to think a key word going unsaid here is narcissism.
Consciously monitoring your identity, and wanting other people to see it, is narcissistic. *Even* if the desire to not just be seen as one part of you, but every part. That's still an identity of sorts.
Also, here: "I know someone with a dozen secret finstas. I discovered that when they post on their main public account, they would spend hours logging in and out of their finstas to like and comment on their original post to boost the algorithm. This process in itself is not an issue. If you’re going to play the status games, play them well. But what was more puzzling was when I asked them about it, they denied it and had a meltdown"
Through a narcissism lens this isn't puzzling, right? The reason they are doing all the liking/commenting to support their identity as 'cool person'. And you pointing that out is exposing that they aren't their identity, which of course gets a violent reaction, because it's their goal to be seen how they want to be seen.
Which takes me to the main point: no one is their identity. Even this is a form of defense mechanism against that:
'We are forced to pick a singular lane and consistently craft our personal brand, package ourselves into a product and appease the repetitive, insatiable appetite of the algorithm.'
I agree people think this but ... forced? Easier than consciously admitting how much we want to be seen as our personal brand, I suppose.
Appreciate you reading and sharing Stefan.
I’m intentionally trying not to label people here in this piece. I think there’s diagnosable narcissism, and then there’s narcissistic tendencies that we’re conditioned on at a cultural level. But I don’t think either are deterministic within who a person fully is. And I think sometimes we default to assigning labels to others that are not ourselves, that doesn’t fully get to the bottom of how people struggle with a lack of fluency in how to explore and express themselves.
A lot of this is a reflection on how we can be less rigid in how we see ourselves and others through identity labels, and instead get better at holding multiple truths at once. I don’t know that I fully agree with that no one is their identity, but I think a different way I would try to articulate it is, how do we create more and better space for multiple identities and labels to exist within one entity, and at the same time, not be limited within the perceived definitions and boundaries of each individual identity or label?
I also don't mean DSM narcissism, agree it's more granular than that. But if you do narcissistic things, you are narcissistic. It's not the end of the world, but it is common. That's what Freya India's piece is about, no?
'how do we create more and better space for multiple identities and labels to exist within one entity, and at the same time, not be limited within the perceived definitions and boundaries of each individual identity or label?'
I guess what I'm saying is the that is bad business too^. Define yourself by the things you do (because that's who you are to other people anyway). Any further label or tuning of that is impression-management of the self, which, well .. doesn't seem to be going great for people
Part of what you’re saying is making me think about (and you might already be onto this) - there’s been some interesting explorations about experience-based identity formation vs affinity-based identity formation. Katherine Dee in particular has written about this - you might be into it.