Life and 'Likes'

I don't like wasting my time. My life, my work, my relationships and my ideas must mutually compliment and feed into each other, so when Facebook started getting mentioned in our BA1002 lectures, I was worried - I immediately associated Facebook with Time Wasting. However, a way was found to make this social networking topic a co-operative component in my life, and I have finally admitted that online social networking is as important for artists of today as cafe culture ever was. The experience of creating an online persona, true yet selective, brought up a number of issues, here discussed.

Sherry Turkle (1995) writes about unseen surveillance, including the type of surveillance inherent in social networking sites such as Facebook, influencing people's behaviour in a markedly ominous way: "Individuals learn to look at themselves through the eyes of the prison guard...this same kind of self-surveillance has extended from the technologies of imprisonment to education and psychotherapy" (p.248). As social networking makes this idea of self-surveillance relevant to an ever increasing number of users, new implications arise. What about the possibility that as individuals create and embellish their online identities, they actually affect (consciously and subconsciously) their offline sense of self, as well as the collective identity of humanity? 

Introducing - Tamlyn Magee, musician. Within an hour or two of online navigation, I have announced on several websites (Facebook, Soundcloud and Youtube) that "I am a musician." Based on the idea that the 'panopticon' (Turkle, 1995) alters how internet users view themselves, the suggestion arises: my conscious notion of self is subject to change based on how I present myself to others within my community. You see, I am a musician, but my current concept of self-identity often has me pegged as an eternal amateur. The prompting this assignment has given me to create an identity within social networks as a confident artist feels like an empowering opportunity to take my creative life a step further, by affirming, and thus positively affecting, my sense of myself as an artist.

However, if Facebook does possess this power to influence me, then I must tread carefully. My unique and incorruptible soul is what is most vital to my music, but will people 'Like' it? Referring to Facebook users and employee/employer (artist/audience) interactions, Roger Wilkinson quoted Jose van Dijck (2013), saying: "...each act of self- performance or personality assessment requires tactical manoeuvering and awareness of the power plays involved in the game.” Obviously some awareness of the power plays inherent in the 'game' of successful social networking is needed, but this concept puts me immediately on guard against (for example) losing the natural magic of music by marketing it with tactical manoeuvres  and power games, thus entering into a commercial sphere where the powers that be are, so far, according to my investigations, mysterious and suspected to be less than benevolent.

References:

Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: identity in the age of the internet. Retrieved from       https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au.

Wilkinson, R. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 2: Power: Big brother and self-surveillance [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from http:learnjcu.edu.au