Cecilia Ngo

My biography on the timeline. Notice how most of the information is false and the quote about myself is full of sarcasm.

W

elcome to the Cecilia Show, full of crude comedy, controversy, athleticism, and a sprinkle of angst. My name is Cecilia Ngo, however, the show that I direct as my Facebook avatar is Cecilia Perhaps. Perhaps it is because my real last name, Ngo, is pronounced “no” which sets up for an ongoing gag of the four words yes, no, perhaps and maybe. Perhaps it is because the word holds the meaning of uncertainty or possibility which can make my profile be questioned for authenticity. Who knows? For me, my Facebook profile is molded by me to exaggerate and caricaturize my life just like how Fran Drescher did with her own show, Happily Divorced. Assuming that Fran Drescher used Happily Divorced to cope with her divorce with her husband, Cecilia Perhaps is used to cope with everyday life while maintaining the fact that Cecilia might be okay.

Who Am I? How am I Me?

Pictures

I was really hurt about some of my friends maliciously making fun of me that day. Rather than talk about it in detail, I posted a semi-serious and semi-funny picture.

Given that my last name is Perhaps and not Ngo, I put more risque and controversial photos online. I feel a lot safer knowing that employers and other authorities cannot find me easily. From looking at my biography, it is shown that I mock the information and seriousness taken on Facebook. Perhaps that is why I am okay with revealing myself in less clothing given the fact that most of my information on my Facebook avatar is false. I am not a professional napper and Cecilia is not pronounced “SEK-shee GURL.” I’ve come to examine that pictures, used as a joke or not, are a staple to my identity. My photos, whether created by me or not, range from normal to ridiculous where there seems to be some positivity in them. Even when I have posts that shows snippets of my anger or hurt, I use comedy as a way to cope with it. However, my friends do not know that, rather, it projects me as someone who is carefree and humorous no matter the occasion.

Other photos I post show how outrageous and hilarious I am. I want to be known as a spunky, carefree girl. I am successful by posting photos about the events that I attend to and photos that I find humorous. Facebook is designed so that whenever I post a picture, it is assumed to be a glimpse of my life and ideas. The site is an interactive personal archive that others are able to sift through. As an archive and database, Facebook users are able to review my user-generated content that presents my identity in the form of snapshots of my life. The ethical concern, however, is to what context are these digital artifacts authentic? In some way or another, my pictures have an element of exaggeration. Indeed, it is valid that an event has happened or that my humor comes from my personality, but users do not know how much of that is skewed.

Progression of my profile pictures as time went by with Facebook usage.

Statuses

With my desire to project myself as a funny person to hang out with, I post statuses from time to time about interesting events. Most are either laced with sarcasm or including a joke. At the same time, some are crass. In some instances I post things that really move me and what I think are important, but these are seldom since little attention is gained from them. I’ve realized that I tend to post humorous things that can potentially yield numerous likes rather than posts that are more true to myself. The reason why I say “more true to myself” is because I am actually more cynical and dark compared to what is portrayed on Cecilia Perhaps. I want to be liked and well-received by others, and the way Facebook is designed in allowing feedback through likes, reactions, and comments allow me to customize myself to my audience. Statuses are created with great focus on who my online audience is and how they would react. In some ways, there is a false sense of intimacy with the raw emotions I hold in posts that make me emotional. For the most part, statuses are rhetoric and provided for my audience as an amusing short piece. My audience is demographically consists of young adults from the University of Michigan, so sarcasm and social injustice are woven into my posts.

Cecilia Perhaps's statuses.

Videos

Videos are integral to my identity as Cecilia Perhaps. They highlight my edginess and humor that I want to portray to my audience. While my pictures and statuses create my identity on Facebook, the videos I upload seal the deal on who I am to my audience. Where statuses and pictures create snapshots of my life that I want to show others, videos portray a moment of my life. With the way that Facebook is designed, videos are implied to be moments of importance that others should pay attention to more than photos and written posts. For that implicit nudge, I upload controversial and high-revealing videos such as pole dancing moves. In addition, I use videos to show my “best” jokes. Would I pole dance in public and to strangers? Of course not. Since I am known as Cecilia Perhaps, if a stranger finds my videos, I do not think much of it due to the falsity of my information on Facebook. For my “best” jokes, they are actually my way to cope with high stress, anxiety, and sadness. Using humor, it looks like I am a jokster, but I am actually looking for instant gratification with likes and comments that tell me that someone is paying attention to me. Posted on both Instagram and Facebook, these three videos demonstrate the comedy, the cool, and the controversy that I wanted to exhibit in my character as Cecilia Perhaps.

Other Parts of Me

Cecilia Perhaps's interactions with others.

Cecilia Perhaps's obsession over Zac Efron.

Secondary elements of Facebook also yield to my production of Cecilia Perhaps. Presenting a popular, rebellious, and reckless student means that she must be heavily active and interactive with others on Facebook. I maintain this image of Ms. Perhaps by sharing funny articles, photos and videos. Other times, I mention in a comment on funny photos and videos with a name of another person. I want to mention as many diverse people within my Facebook friends list as I can as this allows me to look popular and close to those that I mentioned. Some interactions are crass, allowing to present Cecilia Perhaps as carefree and reckless.There is an ongoing joke about Cecilia Perhaps’s obsession of Zac Efron. Truthfully, I takes little effort in seeing his movies or videos. Cecilia Perhaps, however, incorporates him in as many posts possible for comedic effect.

Conclusion

There is some truth in a joke, but the extent to which the joke is truthful is something disclosed only to the jokester. The way that Facebook is designed allows improvement of my Cecilia show is for eliciting audience reaction rather than be a personal archive of my life. With the interaction between others through the use of likes and comments, I’ve created a very open, friendly, and crass identity of myself online. At the same time, Cecilia Perhaps allows me to virtually explore how controversial I can be and practice being comfortable in unwanted attention. Where online I am uncensored, I found myself to become more open about body, thoughts and who my friends to others and strangers in real life than I had ever before. The self-authorship on Facebook allowed me to have a reformation of subjectivities. The ideas of truth and reality are skewed when creating an autobiography on Facebook. The numerical values on likes and comments on a post are designed in a way that users feel the desire to accumulate a high number in these user-generated feedback. They do so by using exaggeration and depreciation of one’s truth. In a way, Facebook users are online caricatures of the real user, allowing for the online truth be exaggerations of the real truths in one's identity. Cecilia Perhaps is me, but obscurely so. Authenticity should be approached cautiously as one's Facebook identity is true, but the skewed portrayal of the truth can diminish its authenticity.