the destroyer > cheap papers > Maureen McHugh
INTERNET SPACE, IDENTITY, AMANDA BYNES // A STUDY IN PARTS
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// I am saying something to you in a tone I am uncertain of. You are uncertain of this tone, also. If the internet occupies a space, it is a negative one, where intent is both numerous and singular. There is no pre-determined voice that defaults in Internet Space, no habit of speech that betrays the mask of language, no threads that untangle to reveal the speaker's true intent
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// In Real Space, our understanding of physical identity is presumed to be based mostly around three things: 1) observation of reflection in a mirror/ mirrored surfaces, 2) observation of self in photographs, 3) observation of self in video / audio recordings
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// Most people, when watching a video or listening to an audio recording of themselves, feel a sense of uneasiness followed by a surreal quality; a sense of likeness that's uncanny yet fraudulent. One stops to say: That's not how I really sound, or: Is my face really that _____?
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// The internet is not unlike this, though Internet Space is not like Real Space. Identity on the internet is a response to the anxiety of Being Seen, the pressures of Real Space, and the terror of containment that comes with the awareness that the physical body exists. Inadequacies of Real Space are negotiated in Internet Space through overcompensation for or by enacting the failure of the Real Self willfully, mostly by embracing these accused flaws
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// The internet eradicates subculture in its accessibility; ideology replacing geography, obscurity made possible to an infinite degree. Internet Space inherently Others; though the possibility of endless community implies there is no longer a dominant culture with which to constrain. This leveling is paradoxical, as a sense of community is provided which can only be accessed by solipsistic retreat
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// Identity-making in Internet Space demands constant Out-of-Body maintenance, requiring the Self to act as an outsider looking in. Its agent is anxiety. Identity was once constructed exclusively in the actual; however, in Internet Space, identity requires the consideration of both the actual and the ideal
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// (This paradox is central to the crisis of the internet generation, a uniting feature; the desire to be absent of identity yet wholly claimed; to be exposed yet unknown)
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// Identities performed in Internet Space are not Real, can never be Real, and are not intended to be Real, as Internet Space is antithetical to Real Space. Internet Space assures infinite identities may exist simultaneously. The singular experience of identity, of Reality as we know it in our bodies, does the opposite. Its limit is false
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// However, one can never assume the same distance lies between a representation in Internet Space as does in Real Space. One may perform disorder haphazardly via Internet Space, without having to experience the actual consequences of the action in Real Space. One must never forget that Internet Space is not Real Space. Watching violence does not make one more violent; similarly, presenting a chaotic facade does not necessarily make one insane
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// Rather, one of the features of the internet is the ability to juxtapose and to re-contextualize, to re-frame. As one re-frames the image literally, they also re-frame the meaning of its representation, fragmenting both the image as it has previously been known and the image as it will be received
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// Unlike in Real Space, in Internet Space, our understanding of identity is perceived as: 1) a collection of images mentally associated with the Self, 2) a collection of comments on qualities related to the Self, and 3) the sum and projection of the information we consume, as we believe it relates to representations of the self
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// The crisis of identity begins when: 1) we accept that we exist, 2) we concede that something will be done to us to change this, and 3) that we prefer this change to be executed in numerous ways by our own varied will