I've always thought that if I were a man, I'd get any girl that I wanted because I would be 'sensitive', 'considerate', 'talk about my feelings', and do all the things that a woman would want a man to do. So when I saw Assignment #3 posted on Blackboard, I thought, here is the very chance to prove myself. It's unfortunate that I'm a straight, 21-year-old woman with a wasted talent, but the challenge remained interesting nonetheless.
My quest for affirmation began in a Yahoo Messenger Chatroom, where I took on the identity of Chris Canlas, a 20-something-year-old male from NYC. It took me several tries with different chatrooms before I could find an audience that was willing to discuss more with me than their webcams. After changing from room after room of "Local NYC singles", I ventured into an R&B and Hip-Hop music room where I found real people. I was prematurely confident of my skills to "win over a woman" that I didn't realize how much impression management would play a role in my newfound persona. For my self-presentation tactics, I suddenly took on the attitude expressions of a black male, using online abbreviations and colloquialisms typical of black males. My best friend, who is West Indian, explained to me that black males tend to be hypermasculine, which in my mind gave me the perfect persona for this task. My sets, props, and lighting consisted of the screenname "Stevie768" and a simple black Arial font - men aren't too fussy about their font and font color. I had to somehow maintain my credibility as a man with "ghettospeak" and a straightforward demeanor (ought self) without indulging too much in my sensitive and inqusitive side (true self), lest someone discovers I am acutally a woman. Also, as a guy, I had to hit on girls.
I entered the "Hip-Hop and R&B Room" and had interesting conversations with two women named toya20087 and myhrtblngs2u (these conversations were in instant message form). toya20087 was a 23-year-old female who asked me what race I was upon first meeting me. Judging from her screenname, I thought she was black, and that I would have a difficult time maintaining my new persona since she could probably see right through it. I told her I was "1/2 chicano, 1/2 filipino," which was closer to the truth (I am full Filipina), and which I would have an easier time maintaining. The "actual self" that I portrayed to toya20087 strayed a bit from the "ought self" I attempted to maintain, but I wasn't daunted. My goal was to maintain a fusion between what I thought a man should have been, and what a woman's curious and concerned personality can be. I had a good conversation with myhrtblngs2u, an 18-year-old girl who plans on attending Virginia Tech. She was doing her AP Biology homework when she was talking to me, so I related to her by saying that I was a Biology major at Cornell (which is true). I also mentioned that I aspired to attend medical school, increasing my credibility. We continued to talk about her aspirations for going to VT, and as I asked her questions about how she thought the tragic events of last year were going to affect her attendance to the school, she began to open up to me. With myhrtblngs2u, I thought I struck a better balance between my ought self and my true self, as described in the last paragraph, because I was able to get myhrtblngs2u to talk comfortably to me. She did, however, show me a picture of herself in a bikini, and was possibly enticed by the idea of talking to a “college man”. Yikes! Of course, this has several other implications for what kind of impression myhrtblngs2u is trying to make with people she meets online. Impression management can be a delicate and frightening thing if one is not careful with it.
Stevie768: aite peace
Stevie768: u best get an A on
Stevie768: cuz u was talkin 2 me
Stevie768: haha
myhrtblngs2u: lol ill try you my good luck charm
myhrtblngs2u: ight i ttyl
Stevie768: lata shawty
4 comments:
Your experience trying to balance out the “ought self” and the “true self” as a woman pretending to be man is very interesting. The following are two thoughts I had while reading your blog.
1) The strategies you used for self-presentation proves that gender exists even on the internet. By gender I am referring to the roles and expectations that is set for each sex. For example, you chose the black font and a certain way of speech to make sure that you appeared “male.” It’s really amazing how the internet offers people the opportunity to remain “sex-less” because the obvious male/female characteristics are not available, people still managed to set criteria for each sex.
2) The difficulty you had staying in character revealed to me that the internet does not make deception any easier. One would think that because you had more control over your impression management and conventional signals, deception would be a simple task. Yet because you have more control you seem to have been extra careful and cautious as well. While your partners may not have noticed small details, you constantly worried that people would see right through you.
Overall, your experience seems to disprove the Social Distance Theory, which says that because lying does not come easily, people would choose the most socially distant media to lie. In conclusion I would just like to say that it’s comforting to know that people have a hard time lying about their sex on the internet (yes, I’ve met “males” on the internet).
It sounds like your selective self-presentation expertise was put to the test here. Your sets, props and lighting seemed entirely appropriate and you did decent job convincing both toya20087 and myhrtblngs2u that you were who you said you were. I liked your explanation of the actual and ought selves. Why do you think you couldn’t help but stray from the “ought”? Given such a handicap as CMC in trying to deceive your partner, what made this façade so difficult to maintain – the synchronousity of instant message, perhaps? I would be interested in further investigating what barrier – be it the medium or the non-ghettospeak you are accustomed to – that obstructed your portrayal of this “ought” self.
I was dually impressed by your conversation with myhrtblngs2u. She really opened up to you, probably sensing your “similarities.” The bikini picture was another issue; was I over-attributing when I read your description of your conversation? I was led to believe that she was smart and sensitive by the seemingly natural conversation, and then blown away that this pleasant girl decided to send a photo of herself in a bikini. I guess you never know with the Internet.
Kristina,
I enjoyed reading your blog. I found it interesting, and can relate to, how you think that you would be such a “lady killer” if only you were a male because of your feminine characteristics. I also liked how you changed your race to what you thought was the preference of the person you were talking to, in order to try to attain good information for this assignment and tried to speak in the tone you had researched (asked your friend) how they would normally converse with people.
What I was not clear on, however, was whether or not you were just portraying yourself (true self) mixed with your ought self (as a male for this project) opposed to what I would have based my theory on: ideal self. If I were to be portraying a male I would instinctively portray myself as the kind of man I would want to date and try to add characteristics I thought this man should (ought self).
Nice blog!
I find your use of self-presentation amazing. I have to admit when I first started reading I was skeptical as how it work out but the results were great. Something I believe that is worth noting is that not only was it easier to portray someone who is a little more similar to your true self (i.e. saying that you are 1/2 Filipino & 1/2 Chicano when you are full filipino)BUT it was also easier to portray a culture that you knew something about. Would it have been harder to attempt to be a black male if you had never had social interactions with one? Was it important that your main source of information was a friend who you could interact with face-to-face, which would allow you to learn more of his mannerisms and interests (which might be culture related)? Would it have been more difficult if the only information you had about black males was what you saw on BET, or to the other extreme, read about in books of African American history? I wonder if you would have been able to portray yourself as convincingly.
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