Part of the chilling unpleasantness inspired by deepfakes and other modes of falsity online involves realizing that, sometimes, we really do want to ground ourselves in a reality against which we can check and discredit unreal images of ourselves. Thanks to the ambiguity of internet, it can be hard to establish a negative: I'm not that image. I didn't do that thing you see me doing. I didn't say/type/tweet/post that thing you read in my name. I didn't buy that stuff my credit record says I did.
Maybe we aren't real enough, at least for those who aren't physically around us 24/7.
That doesn't mean people don't try to establish a "real me" online.
For this post, find, share, and reflect on some means of performatively establishing a real identity. What performance techniques do people use to establish a trustworthy connection between real them and digital them? Alternately, how do they break or discredit links between real them and (deep)faked them?
Here's an example to get you started. There's a subreddit called "Roast Me" (r/RoastMe) in which people post pictures of themselves, sometimes with a brief description ("unemployed, live with parents, 32"), asking redditors to "roast them"--use wit or meanness to cut them down, insult them, etc.
It is not my cup of tea. But I do find it fascinating that those wishing to be roasted must post an image of themselves holding up a sign that explicitly says "Roast Me"--preferably with their Reddit handle there. The idea, it seems, is to prevent nonconsensual roasting. You can't just post a random picture of someone and invite the internet to mock them (well, of course you can, but just not on r/RoastMe).
Obviously, this isn't foolproof. Photoshop could easily manufacture a pic of anyone holding some sign like that. But it is an attempt, at least, to establish a link between real-space human and digital-space activity.
For what it's worth, there's another subreddit, r/ToastMe, which is the same thing, but it solicits only encouraging messages for people in need of support. Much more my speed.
(This poor guy's caption is "Girlfriend of 3 years just left me. I'm completely broken." Toast him if you'd like.)
What other means of reality-checking people can you think of? Are there artists playing with this kind of verification? Share!
John
Henry's post about Finsta and teens trying to have a private online profile away from parents reminded me of an event in 2012. I think teens need spaces that are private from their parents. Full disclaimer I don't have kids, but that's not gonna stop me from sharing my opinions. I've been roasted by parents for my opinions in the past, and I got no fear of the flame. Teens are in a process of identity discovery and decision, discovering who they are and deciding who they want to be. Sometimes parents try to exert too much control over the teens' identity, not always but some parents do. Having spaces with friends and peers where teens can show up as who they are becoming instead of who their parent's need them to be can be healthy. Can be, I'm not denying the dangers of bullying and cyber-bullying it's just beyond the scope of this response.
ReplyDeleteWhat does this have to do with the topic and Henry's post? Back in 2012 a father hacked his teen daughter's Facebook account where she complained to her friends about her parents. Her posts were full of curse words she was not allowed to use at home. They were unkind and ungrateful posts to be sure. Her father was so angry he made a video response to his daughter and posted it to Youtube. In the video he sits in a chair in his yard, he reads her posts and responds to them. It is a planned and thought out performance. The video his pose, having the posts printed for reading all adds credibility to what he is doing. Then 7 minutes into the video he takes his .45 automatic and fires 6 shots in to his daughter's laptop destroying it. It is a performative act that gave me chills when I first saw it. I feel a non-performative response would have been to simply take away the laptop. But he destroyed it, not with a hammer, but with the explosive power of a firearm. He even uses performative utterances "You're mom told me to put one in there for her. " *bang* "That one's from your mom."
If you break it down all he did was break a laptop that he legally owned (he had bought it). But the performative elements of the video elevated it to something that made national news.
here is a link for anyone who wants to see the original: https://youtu.be/kl1ujzRidmU
This week, I read Alan's blog and loved the example of dog shaming because animals don't speak in a way humans understand as a language, so knowing who they are online or in real life is an interesting concept. It's fascinating that people use their animals to gain internet fame and I like that in this example, humans are using animals to create their animal's image/true self. Thinking of an animal's true self is a fascinating concept. And then who a person is based on their pets is also fascinating.
ReplyDeleteA person who would shame their dog or cat on the internet with a sign exposing what trouble they got into, wouldn't necessarily do the same to their child, mother, or lover. How people change with their animals online is very interesting.
I guess the analogue here would be self-shaming posts, often set to Bill Wurtz's (amazing) song "I Just Did a Bad Thing" (found here: https://youtu.be/O2yPnnDfqpw ). In the self-shaming meme based on the song, Tik Tok kids play the song, nodding or singing along to the lyrics: "I just did a bad thing/ I regret the thing I did/ And you're wondering what I did/ I'll tell you what I did/ I just did a baaaaad thing." And then they reveal what it was they did. They're funny when done well. Here's a sampling: https://youtu.be/Kamyxv_ChUw
ReplyDelete