Talk:Joey Carron
Comment #1: (Madison Garver) Hi Joey! I always love reading your stuff, so I was glad to be able to snag a spot as a commenter. Overall, your piece was great, but I do have some suggestions.
-- Be wary of run-on sentences and grammatical errors. There were a few spots where I had to re-read sentences a few times so as to be able to fully understand/unpack what you were saying. I think you may benefit from a few further read-throughs to be able to cut out some excessive wordiness. This will also give you some of your word count back, so you can focus on expanding on some issues more.
---> For example, "The choices we make in representing identity online, whether reflections of ourselves or of fictionalized people or embellished personas, indicate some values, interests, and beliefs held by the person who runs the account." might better be phrased along the lines of "The choices individuals make in how they represent their identities online indicate the values, interests, and beliefs they hold, regardless of whether the personas they embody are fictionalized or truthful." Or something along those lines. You may also benefit from expanding on what you fully mean by "choices."
-- Overall, I think your piece could benefit from some photos or screenshots. Additionally, it may help the reader if you break it up into headings. You don't necessarily need to follow the affordances of the Wiki platform, but it'd be good to have a little structure (especially you say that you're breaking up the text into levels of control; you don't have to tell us what you're doing. Pull a Shia and just do it).
-- Crosby is the worst.
-- From this quote: "Our online identities are strongly metered by various control mechanisms like privacy settings, self-control, and social norms. All these factors combine to determine our behavior and how we present ourselves." -- how do each of these mechanisms affect our identities differently? This is really interesting, and I'd like to hear more.
-- "If someone sees me associated with content they don’t like, they may unfriend me, voice their complaints to me, or talk about it to others which could damage my reputation" -- do you have a specific example of this, or is this a hypothetical situation?
-- "The site design also carries embedded values that push users toward certain behavior. There’s usually an expectation or small amount of social pressure to tell someone happy birthday on their wall, even if you don’t know them that well. When you receive an invite, at least from a friend, it’s often expected that you need to respond otherwise it seems disrespectful. The chat app lets others know when you’ve seen their messages, so you can’t just open them and pretend you didn’t see them—not without the ensuing social ramifications of ignoring the messages or purposefully not responding." --> Where do these expectations or norms come from? Are they implicit, or are they especially bad for you since you suffer from anxiety? How do these expectations shape your behavior or enjoyment? How does this affect your usage?
-- "As far as content goes, it’s difficult to construct a cohesive identity based off of someone’s posts or activity because there are so many key contextual pieces that are often missing." --> I'd appreciate some clarification here. Is the READER constructing a perceived identity, or is the CREATOR constructing an identity based off of the content they are producing?
Overall, I would have liked to see a bit more about your personal narrative instead of just an analysis of social media practices and norms. My favorite moments in your piece occurred when your story came through -- for example, when you related your anxiety and fears to your usage seemed so much more authentic and personal than when you simply discussed Facebook.
Comment #2:(Evan Jon Gennrich)
Hi Joey, I thought you have a fairly fleshed out perspective on your observations of Facebook and construction of your Facebook identity. I think you've got a lot that works, but also places where you might be able to make some improvements. Here are my thoughts, which are written following a more or less chronological order:
A sentence like, "Even if a Facebook identity is entirely constructed of falsehoods, it is revealing of the person who created or runs the account," could benefit from adding some subjectivity. Like, "Because even if I totally construct my Facebook profile out of lies, people will still make assumptions about my personality, identity, and think they know who I am."
"My first profile picture was an awkward, oddly cropped, grainy photo of me from freshman year, and it seems fitting for representing myself at the time," is a great opportunity to share a photo.
"Employers, friends, advertisers, family are likely viewers of this information, so it’s important to understand your view of online identity versus what others actually see." A sentence like this coming near the beginning of a paragraph feels like you're trying to prove too much, too fast. Use the paragraph to build up this idea, and then summarize the paragraph with a sentence like this, (or lead with it, making damn sure to unpack it fully before moving to the next idea.)
I would tighten the story of your adoption of Facebook, including only details that help us understand where you're coming from for when you start talking about how you've come to your present day conclusions.
My favorite paragraph was the one that began, "Depending on the levels of privacy settings,..." is my favorite of your paragraph. It explores in-depth nuances regarding the reality what it's like for one to be apart of a network like Facebook, where context collapse exists. I wish you'd do two things: actually explain what http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/12/08/coining-context-collapse.html is, (it does nothing to be seemingly reinventing the wheel), and speak with a more personal voice. You use "us," "we," "the users of," and "I" from this paragraph on, which rubs me like you're trying to academically describe a phenomenon rather than explain to your reader Joey's Avatar.
If I were you, I might make a short list of the main point of each paragraph. Next, introduce any necessary background information relating to the affordances/ design of Facebook. Then relate it to how you, Joey, go about behaving on Facebook. And don't forget to answer the "why?" (whether that means relating it to your social anxiety, concern for privacy, desire to be satirical, or whatever else.
Other little things: be mindful of run-on sentences and/or sentences that are too fully loaded, and also steer wide of soft adjectives like 'quite,' 'a little,' a lot,' ect...
Overall, great job and keep it up!
Peace and love,
Evan Jon
