Identity as game, as play

I've got a theory. Of course I do. So here goes. 

If you're over forty, your sense of how information technology and the media work is, let's say, "old school conventional." That is, you believe that one's identity is singular. When you send a letter, start a bank account, make a phone call, send an email, update your facebook, tweet on twitter, comment on someone's blog post, or respond to a telemarketer, you are you. In your world your identity is, in theory, if not in practice, indivisible - seamless from one platform to another.   

If you're under thirty, your sense of the same is, let's say, "fluid." That is, you see identity as multi-faceted. You may start a bank account with your "conventional" SIN identity, but you'll create multiple web presences using a range of aliases. You'll frequently change your picture avatar on facebook, and on any other social sites you frequent. You will do this not so much because you wish to deceive, but because you see yourself as a player in a game, as though changing from the thimble monopoly piece to the horsey one is no big deal, because it isn't. In your world your identity is, in practice, mutable and "in play." It's a part of the game called "Let's be ... whatever!" These changes are like roles you take on, like an actor on a stage. You determine your identity based on the social platform (the game) you are on. This is, in a way, also how you manage your privacy. Some people will know you as x on facebook, others as y on DeviantArt, still others as z on Tumblr, and so on. While there may be some co-mingling between platforms, only those you truly trust will have access to enough information about your roles (identities) to know you as a "multiple-presence." 

When the over-40 set, the "old-school conventionals" (OSC), observe the "fluid" nature of the younger set, they seem to get upset about it. This is, I think, because conventional identity is still the reigning paradigm of their work world. For example, when you create an account on LinkedIn they say they will help you "control your professional identity online." The idea is that you are representing that singular OSC ID "out there." Indeed, occasionally a member of the "fluid" younger set makes a grievous error in judgement (a la Kevin Colvin, etc.) and it hits the news (also run by OSCs) and gets spun to make it look as bad as possible. On the whole though,  this confuses things, instead of helping us understand what's happening as a result of the networking possibilities provided to us today. Yes, Kevin Colvin and those like him, who do not manage their identities well, and who don't understand that they still need to work in the world of the OSCs, should pay for their stupidity. It's funny when they get caught. It's their own fault. They should suffer the consequences of this ignorance. 


Indeed their situations should be cautionary tales for the younger set: helpful reminders that most of the people you meet in the real world live and work under the OSC assumption that identity is singular and indivisible. You have to manage this in their world, or you will hurt for it. However, on balance, the nature of public identity (and private?) appears to be in flux. Whether it's gaming or social sites or simply identifying yourself when you comment on an online news article, we are playing with who we are depending on the context. We are switching. We are renaming. And we're naive to think that when we rename, we don't re-identify. 


Frankly, I've always had roles to play: father, son, husband, teacher, friend, enemy, coach, whatever. But these roles have been more or less generic in form and when I enter into my "son" role I know what the rules are. These identity shifts, or the new roles I'm wondering about here are those in which I shift or morph my named self, my core "Paul" self, into something new, that doesn't necessarily fit into one of the generic categories. You can watch this happening out there; it occurs on all social platforms. Who is Stephen Colbert really? Who is Lady Gaga? Why are these two successful media figures able to manage their private lives? Why are Brittney Spears and Lindsay Lohan in such mortal trouble? Because Colbert and Gaga are "ID fluid," and Spears and Lohan are relatively "ID rigid." They're being too "old school" about who they are. They haven't done a Gaga, who has made (and continues to make) multiple avatars of herself to negotiate this strange new virtual planet we're creating. 

Just for fun I predict a Justin Bieber (a young OSCer?) epic-fail on the scale of Tiger Woods (who also couldn't manage his multiple vs his rigid (ouch!) identities). Bieber's ID is too static and he is being managed, it would seem, by money hungry OSCers who likely don't care what it will look like to be Bieber when he's 20, much less 40. If he need's privacy, and he's only got his "Bieber" ID, how's that going to work? How will he be able to restart the game, if he can't change his gamepiece?

Does this make any sense to you?