Prisoners of Identity

Think about a popular influencer you know. They could be any kind of influencer - fashion, politics, literary, travel - anything. When you go to their social media profile, you will see their topic of choice reflected in every aspect of it, right?

Their bio will contain statements and links that serve as social proof of their topical expertise. Their pinned posts will be their most popular pieces of content. Their posts will all be about that one topic. In fact, many influencers refrain from posting about anything other than the topic that they have come to be associated with. It has to do with the nature of social networks, which reward topicality and punish deviations from what the algorithm has come to associate with you.

So powerful is the hold these patterns have over us that people literally start fresh accounts to talk about a hobby of theirs or to share personal pictures and videos. To do so on their 'main' - the account devoted to the topic they are known for - would amount to social media seppuku. A human being is complex and capable of change. The reason their social media profile cannot accurately represent them is because it calcifies into something unnaturally solid. The person behind the profile, for the sake of acceptability, has to continue to pretend that they too are only one thing, unchanging and immutable.

I have been there, and I have even written a personal essay about the problem of becoming prisoner to your own online identity.

I was reading Jia Tolentino's book Trick Mirror recently and found this in the chapter titled The I in the Internet

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