Talk:Jenny Kim
You were clear, concise, and got straight to your point.
The first paragraph “Temporality and Progression of the Album” reveals that you have taken time to think about the change and development of yourself, which reflects your actions in choosing a picture to represent your “true self”. You say that the wholistic album “showcases a lively, active, social vibe to users,” and from looking at the image you have uploaded, that description really comes through to me. Your profile pictures emit a colorful, and animated vibe, that describes that you are social and active. From the looks of your pictures, if I were to guess a little about your life, I would believe that you love Michigan football, you are on a dance team 2xs, you love to dance, you love to ski, and you are a happy girl that enjoys being with her friends (you look to be smiling in every picture).
The second paragraph “Authentic vs. Inauthentic” is very strong. I like how you took a twist on profile pictures and rather than dissecting each one, you talk about the album as a whole, and how that is more representative of you authentic self. When you say that the “trail of my profile pictures allows my Facebook friends to be generally updated on my life, but on a more general scale,” I think your profile pictures allow your “friends” to be updated more on your looks than your life, and show what you like to do more socially. I think your profile pictures allow you to represent yourself to the Facebook world as authentic because you do not provide anything that is inauthentic, but this authenticity is not a full representation of you.
It was very smart to choose the dance picture to analyze more in depth, because it explains how valuable dancing is to you, and gives more definition to your “dance 2xs audition” picture, which allows me to believe that it is very important and meaningful to you, since it is recently uploaded. I found it interesting the different ways that you interpret “likes,” because with a simple click of the five-letter word, it sure can have different interpretations to different users. I guess there really is no way to know why an individual “likes” a picture, and drives me to think about why I “like” a picture.
When you talk about online identities vs. a real person’s identity, I think it depends on the person of who is looking at your profile to determine how much detail is taken into account for an online identity. Because I know that my profile and my pictures are not that representative of me, I don’t judge other online identities based on every detail that I see. Some pictures are more representative of yourself and it really depends on your networks and you groups of friends that carry over from your offline persona to your avatar that creates a more social environment online especially if they were present at the events you have photographed. No matter how representative people think profile pictures may be, it is easy for others to create faulty perceptions about one’s personality. Profile pictures, as for any picture, are extremely ambiguous in that way.
Both body paragraphs are powerful statements that reveal your genuineness of the effort. You are definitely an active online user, and think carefully about your profile pictures, and how authentic they come across to your friends. A few sentences were a bit confusing, like “In other words, friends who are really my friends will know more about me than what my profile pictures tell me,” and “Pictures of me dancing or skiing would tell a Facebook user that I have athletic abilities, but would not be so upfront in a conversation, unless brought up”. Also, a little more distinction between your “friends” vs. your “Facebook friends,” and maybe a more descriptive explanation of what you mean by “overrepresentation” would have helped me understand more clearly the point you wanted to get across. Overall, the flow was well done, transitioning smoothly from primary to secondary elements, all while sticking to focus of your profile pictures. Great job! -Emily
Second Review-----
Jenny, I really enjoyed reading your autobiography. I think it was a very interesting take to use your profile pictures as a theme. You did really well in dissecting exactly what each profile picture you chose meant to you personally in addition to what it portrayed about you publicly. Finding a balance between these two sides is often difficult. If you pick one based purely on aesthetics or personal enjoyment, you risk coming across as conceited or shallow. At the other end of the spectrum, trying to appear a certain way for whatever reason can backfire in that people are not quite sure where the picture fits within your overall personality. I think the way you have evolved in choosing your profile picture shows good growth in your usage of social media. That you were able to display all of this too in your autobiography was a feat of writing.
Authenticity seems to be important to you, for the most part. It's great that you are dedicated to providing a realistic, or as realistic as possible, portrait of who you are via the medium of Facebook. I too think it is important that people who are your "friends" in an online space have at least a broad sense of who you are as a person. It is cool that you seem to update your profile whenever important events occur, keeping everything up to date. For example, even if it is just superficial knowledge, I would now know about your love of dancing, participation in athletics, strong friend group, and many other small details about your life without ever having seen you before. I further liked your honesty in regards to the limitations of social media and how a person couldn't completely know you through your posts and pictures. Obviously I just learned these facts about you reading about your profile but I could not accurately infer much else based on what I can see from your profile. The fact that you keep it as true to yourself as possible tells me that your online space is just an extension of your "real" self which is how I would use my Facebook if I had one.
The only real issue I saw with your biography were the slightly odd heading formats. The "Profile Pictures" heading felt unnatural to me; I think you could point out that was a theme for within the paragraph and then readdress that point in your conclusion. The subheading "Authentic vs. Inauthentic" should not have had so much content under it. It felt too long. The content was fine, but it should be redivided into two sections. Overall, excellent job with the project.
Ross
