Talk:Ben Tan

Firstly, I would like to take a moment to appreciate the artistic value of your page's introduction: "This endeavor into my online identity has brought me to a single realization that I’ve always known but never admitted: the authentic version of me, the one I see in the mirror and attempt to describe herein, has never been truly portrayed in the virtual world." This was very well written and beautifully captures your emotions in reaction to discovering yourself.

Moving forward, the headers throughout your wiki page were very descriptive and directed me, as a reader, through your content very well. The headers pertaining to each of the social media sites were well labeled, as they included the name of the social media site which you talked about underneath as well as a short yet descriptive thought tacked on the end which gave me understanding to your identity on the site. The offered alternative “name,” or way of thinking about these sites in relation to your interaction and presence on them provides much information to readers even without reading your paragraphs.

Another aspect of your page which I enjoyed was that you didn’t just focus on your identity within one site, but three. In evaluating your social presence and identity over more sites I got a better idea of how you interact with different media as well as your overall online identity. Additionally, the depth of your writing was also relatively deep, yet concise, which is the opposite of what I initially expected due to the fact that there’s simply so much content that can be covered with three social media sites versus one.

However, I believe that the structuring of your page could be a little better and I will offer a few suggestions from my experience with it so far. The spacing between different elements needs to stay consistent. More specifically, I noticed that the top of the contents box was a little too close to your introduction and could use a little space between the two, just for consistency. Additionally, when the page is viewed full screen (viewing regularly, fully sized on a screen), all of the pictures from each section bleed into the next section. A fix for this would be placing the pictures slightly higher up within your page’s code. In doing this, I believe that your page will flow a little better. Furthermore, I’m not sure how I feel about the middle picture being formatted to the left side of the screen, as it shifts the text away from where it normally would be. This might just be a personal preference issue, but I thought it may be useful to mention. Lastly, be careful starting a page with blocks of text, as this has the tendency to cause readers to be overwhelmed and uninterested. However, I believe that due to the strength of your writing within the intro of your page, you have very little to worry about. Great work!

--Benjamin Zeffer

Comment 2

Hi Ben! First off, I love the opening lines of your article. It reminded me of a movie monologue and began to read it in that tone of voice. Your usage of words as weighted as distorted and curated, really exemplifies the discrepancy between who we are in real life and online.

The captions for all of your headings are very entertaining too. I like how you didn’t just leave them as Facebook or MySpace or Instagram. One suggestion I have is to go more into detail about the “Top Friends” idea because I think it will help your argument a lot. What did you feel when you were doing it? Did it affect your friendships real life? How did you decide who was your #1 top friend?

For your Facebook, you talk about how you realized people acted the same way on MySpace and Facebook. How did you act? Were you in the same mindset as you were when you had MySpace? You talk about the content you saw. What about the content you made? If you did.

What kind of posts do you put on your Instagram? Would you ever show it on Facebook? Why? You say that you have less cool moments to post because you just experience fewer “cooler” moments so how is that different from who you were on MySpace and wanted to impress girls?

Your tone of voice is consistent throughout, though it does get a bit muddled in the middle, you find your way back. You talk about how your social media presence has died down since MySpace. I would suggest emphasizing that more in your paragraphs. How often did you post on MySpace? Facebook? Instagram? Compare and contrast some more. Additionally, be vigilante of your photo placings. They're in great spots, but they could be changed a bit here and there so the margins aren't so off.

Overall, this is a solid article that just needs a bit of tweaking in a couple of spots. Great job! And good luck with the rest of it! :)

- Reeya Desai (reeyad)

Comment 3

Hey Ben,

I really appreciated your article! Your article was in ways similar to mine, in how you described not only your varying usages for different platforms, but also how your usage for the different platforms and your attitude for social media usage overall changed over time. I thought it was interesting that you described yourself primarily as a consumer of social media, and much less an active participator. I think that's a very accurate description. Your titles were great and the narrative was very relatable. I enjoyed the way you described your mindset as an "angsty pre-teen", having swishy haircuts and going through different band genres constantly. Reading through your article was a breeze, because your narration was casual and relatable. Your captions and title headers were quite humorous as well. I think you hit the nail right in the head in terms of the class discussion point of having different identities. I wonder how to describe the "online identity" of someone who no longer actively participates in social media. I think you writing was awesome -- perhaps a little bit more cohesiveness would have improved it, but otherwise great.

Hannah Yen