interesting article about teens and MySpace

[dirtylibrarian]

Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace
Danah Boyd
American Association for the Advancement of Science
February 19, 2006

Comments

[zapophenia.livejournal.com]

::giggle:: That'd be great! "Beware the moral panic!"

[tanyaleestone.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this; it's really interesting.

[sararyan.livejournal.com]

i am a big fan of her work, and have been following her blog (http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/) for a while.

[gryph.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It's nice to see that MySpace isn't the sexual predator playground like the media makes it out to be. But I find "identity production" really weird. It sounds like personal branding to me, like product branding.

It's funny too, how they say teens are expected to comment as a sign of affection. I see that on LJ all the time, but with 20- and 30-somethings. I always see people commenting on people's posts as though they are totally gushing over the poster and what was said. I've never understood that. It makes sense with teens, but not with young, to not-so-young, adults.

I also see the feedback requesting on LJ. People say they do something, either in their own journal or a community, and then ask their audience/peers if they think that is okay. I've always found that lame, but then again, I've always had a firm sense of who I was, and never asked for validation in that way.

I do like how these online spaces give way to a broader scope of interaction with people one might not normally be exposed to. It's cool to make friends with people in different countries, and from different cultures.

Of course you have a more knowing prospective of the teen world, but I've never understood the MySpace/Friendster/Tribe sites. I'm on the latter two, but after I made my profile, I was like "now what?" There are the Tribe "Tribes", and I've even signed up on a bunch of them, but after awhile I stopped reading them. I get BLOGS and journals more.

Ah, but I babble...

[zapophenia.livejournal.com]

I have yet to figure out how to get away from the term "identity production" to really get at the process of performing identity (in a Butler sense). I find that "identity performance" is even more confusing to people, but then again, i believe in the de Certeau view that production and consumption are intrinsically connected. So if you have any ideas, let me know... i definitely don't want to be signaling branding because it's not that... it's not that overt. It's more like Goffman giving off-ness. Hmm...

But to your other points, yes, a lot of what goes down on MySpace happens elsewhere too, especially LJ. I wasn't trying to say that it's teens only...

As for what to do once on them, depends on your needs. If you're a party keep, you'll use Tribe to find out about the next cool thing. But a lot of it is similar to blogs - checking in with your friends to see their photos and new songs and whatnot. Think of it in the personality test kinda way, checking out what your friends think of themselves and finding it funny and fascinating. For people who aren't so verbal, the constantly updated profile with photos is much more fun.

[gryph.livejournal.com]

When I posted my comment, I had no idea I'd be responding to the originator, but that's cool. I read a lot about corporate branding, and targeting kids in marketing, so that's where I was coming from. To me "production" sounds like manufacturing, which leads me to corporations, marketing, and then branding.

I'm no expert in your field, but I suppose if some asked me to describe MySpace in terms of what the teens were up to, I might say things like "identity shaping", "identity creation", or "identity molding." I would say that teens are 'trying on different identities for size, seeing what works for them.'

Oh, I wasn't implying you that you thought only teens did such things online, I was just personally commenting that I was surprised adults were also doing such things as well.

Yeah, I guess maybe it's a generational thing, like you mentioned in your presentation. I like reading people's thoughts and opinions, more than their profiles. Like I mentioned, I'm on Friendster and Tribe along with a number of real-life-friends, but I'm never interested to go see if anyone ever updated their profile. I do know a girl who adds pictures to her profile constantly, but I don't ever check it out. I much rather read their blogs/journals, see what they are up to. I also am on a number of emailing lists, and I guess I get my "party information" through that route. In fact, of the Tribes I'm subscribed, those same people are on mailing lists as well, so a lot of the information is redundant. But again, I haven't been a teenager for a couple decades now, and the arena has changed.

[zapophenia.livejournal.com]

Ah, the power of unknown audiences...

Hm... the trick is that we take internalized understandings of self and produce an exterior identity in the form of clothing, movements, language. It's an internal->external process so it's not just creation on the outside which is what one needs to be careful of. And it's not as though the identities are coming from elsewhere so that people can try them on... it all comes from within one's head based on their own understandings of the world. Of course, that internal model is affected by culture. This is why identity production is about resolving what comes out externally with what one sees themselves as internally.

(Btw: researching teens makes you glad you aren't one anymore... you forget how much of your world was controlled by others.)