Facebook (as Performance Art)
Facebook has pierced the social sphere in both online and offline spaces. It has evolved into a global cultural phenomena based around the human desires of self-representation and common-interest relationships. Thus, even though the forms of net identity that users create through Facebook are subtle compared to other platforms, such as MMO for example, they are still just as important and relevant to the notion of net identity as performance art. Within Facebook, users create their own unique page where they have such information as their; name, birthday, personal bio's, personal photos, favourite books, TV shows watched, liked movies, friends on Facebook, and so forth.
The Facebook Profile as Performance
Users operating on the platform that Facebook provides are given an expansive set of choices in creating their profiles, as well as the options of utilizing photos and images in profile pictures, cover photos, and albums. Since Facebook does not fact check user profiles, and has no means to as that would violate privacy, users experience the freedom of defining what information and images, wether factual or not, they publish about themselves. As such, users are capable of re-representing or even re-creating themselves within the Facebook community, forming their own unique identity set apart from their identity within the physical social space.[1] This power allows the human concept of identity fluidity, allowing users to represent themselves in whichever manner suites them best, be it subtle re-representation, or completely new identities they relate to more intimately. Thus, when we discern the process of decision making within Facebook, we are able to more critically examine and appreciate the gesture and beauty behind the logic of choices that resulted in the creation of a users online identity. We become spectators to users performance, through decisions and self-representations they feel intimately attracted to, ultimately being given a deeper understanding of their human experience. It is because net identity is self-created and powered, without impositions or societal norms, that the performance of representing themselves becomes an artistic act of publishing their most intimate desired identity and experience. Ergo, the Facebook profile, as a whole, becomes the performative gesture of the user, a performance of choice and self-created identity.
