We Are All Unique Whenever Where We are

We Are All Unique Whenever Where We are

by Laetitia Cunden

Boy, Girl or Both?

‘A song’, he said, ‘was both map and direction-finder. Providing you knew the song, you could always find your way.’ (Chatwin, 1987, pg.13) We, western people we don’t have the same concept of ‘a song’ in nowadays society. Our world is quite different from theirs, this emphasizes on each culture’s uniqueness and particularly individual whenever we are.

Can I say that my social or virtual networking is ‘a song’ according to my interpretation? Because, on my Facebook profile, I can say that there’s a lot of information about me; personal information, recent activities, my likes and dislikes and my comments.. Due to the modern world and the modern technologies, my friends on Facebook can get to know where I recently was. According to last week’s lecture ‘a map is a kind of representation which serves for a particular purpose’ (Petray 2013). Can this consider be consider as a map? Because if you want to know where I’ve been those last days, you only have to retrace the recent places where I’ve been you’ll get a map of places.

‘The internet is a virtual self-narrative i.e. you are not the only person constructing your identity.’ (Van Luyn, 2013). On my social network, your account is supposed to reflect who you are- your identity. But still there are fake accounts. These fake accounts enable self-narrative i.e. to have the opportunity to re-invent who you are and want to be. Even though it is said that Facebook don’t offer a variety of options concerning the information details, you can still use this disadvantage as an advantage (while pretending to be someone else, you have the opportunity to re-invent a story/a life on Facebook without divulging a lot of information).

Fake accounts or not, you’re still creating a new experience every time and by posting activities (Statuses, comments, songs, photos..) on Facebook, we are writing our own story in our own way. Our profile is ‘a song’ as we can be retraced whenever we are, whatever we doing…as it keeps a history of our older posts.

References:

Van Luyn, A. (2013)-BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place, Lecture 4: Narrative [Power Point Slides]. Retrieved from: http://learnjcu.au.edu

Petray. T. (2013)-BA1002: Our Space, Networks, Narrative and the Making of Place, lecture 2: Power [Power Point Slides]. Retrieved from: http://learnjcu.edu.au 

Chatwin, B. (1987) Chapter 3. The Songlines (11-15). London, UK: Jonathan Cape Ltd.

Image Credits:

Deamicis. C. (2013). Gender Box. Retrieved from http://pandodaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/gender.jpg?w=467&h=350