“The portrait of identity online is often painted in black and white,” Poole said. “Who you are online is who you are offline.” That rosy view of identity is complemented with a similarly oversimplified view of anonymity. People think of anonymity as dark and chaotic, Poole said. But human identity doesn’t work like that online or offline. We present ourselves differently in different contexts, and that’s key to our creativity and self-expression. “It’s not ‘who you share with,’ it’s ‘who you share as,’” Poole told us. “Identity is prismatic.”

Some really interesting thoughts from Chris Poole. This, I think, is one of Tumblr’s greatest strengths—it’s about self-expression, identity that you control, rather than identification. 

Notes

  1. taylorlorenz reblogged this from markcoatney
  2. thecamcorder reblogged this from markcoatney and added:
    a thing I would love to explore. Though I do think facebook, google+, et al. allow for some crafted representation.
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  7. jedsundwall said: I tell people to follow me on Tumblr if they really want to know me. It’s where I’m most me.
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