I suppose in this day and age, everyone has some sort of online presence. I myself probably have half a dozen profiles spread across the social media outlets of Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, and since I couldn't access a few of those while I was in China, now also on Sina Weibo and Kaixin.
It is our ubiquitous presence online that begs the question, how do we really present ourselves online? Do we purposedly try to portrait ourselves in a totally different manner or do we merely create a mirror image of ourselves in real life? For some, the answer lies closer to one end of that spectrum, yet for others, it's perhaps a mixture of both, thus placing us somewhat in the middle of that identity spectrum.
The natural follow-up question would be how do people, both those whom we know in real life and those who have only become acquainted with our online images perceive us? When I first began to build my online profiles, I mostly preferred to interact with those whom I have already built a relationship, whether personal or professional, in real life, and that is why I had a natural affinity towards being a part of Facebook and Linkedin, for those were based on (or at least were the case when I first joined them) real-life relationships. Yet as the online world expanded, and as Weibo became a more popular medium, strangers began to intrude into my previously well-guarded world.
Of course, I must admit that I have met many interesting people via one of these online media, yet as I ponder this question of cyber-presence versus real self, I realize that for me, a large part of whether I let someone into my inner sanctum has to do not with how I met this person or how long we have known each other, but more to do with how much chemistry there is between us.
Of course, this is something I have realized long ago, and have probably written about this topic on many occassions in the past, but as I ponder this issue (at a rather ungodly hour I must admit, perhaps to use up some of my overly zealous brain cells), I must admit my online self, at least the one that I choose to show those whom I consider good friends, is one that is a true manifestation of my real life self.
I do realize that what I described is hardly the norm, and many people certainly don't perceive that to be the norm. I have encountered those strangers who somehow came across my weibo or blog, and began to draw rather unfounded conclusions about my background, my views and my life. While amusing at first and sometimes certainly fun to read, at a certain point, my self-protective instinct does kick in and I become rather suspicious of those rather random attention.
So I suppose I wouldn't change much about how I present myself online, and there is little I can do to influence how others behave, however I reserve the right to eliminate those "followers" that I deem rather suspicious in nature and motive from my online world. After all, my online presence is in essence just an extention of my real world, and for the sake of those close to me and important to me, this is something very much worth protecting with care.
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