The Real You vs. The Twitter You

Jul 31, 2011

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 Everyday, this tweet trends. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. G.

Self-disclosure on the internet is high because there's a sense of anonymity. It's the same reason Honesty Box took over Facebook at one point and Juicy Campus had the trap jumpin' for months on end. While Twitter isn't completely anonymous, it still allows people to hide behind an alias and communicate over the web, as opposed to in person. People LOVE being able to speak their minds and not be held immediately accountable for it like they would in face-to-face interaction. Twitter provides that for EVERYONE, not just a select few folks who "act differently on the internet than they do in real life".

But even more than that, people share ideas to express themselves, explain themselves, and to build relationships. It's all about impression management and giving off the best You as possible. So, it's common for us to switch our swag up to match our environment. One person could vary tremendously between Twitter, the workplace, church, the classroom, within an organization, at parties, etc. Does that make them fake or "totally different"? Or is it possible that you just have not been exposed to EVERY side of them?

Personally, I know that the majority of my tweets aren't surprising to the people that know me best, but to a mere acquaintance (and I have a lot of these online), some of the things I say may be unexpected. Maybe yall shouldn't be so afraid to call people acquaintances and realize that you don't know your "friends" as well as you think. But yo, if you use Twitter, you are NO exception to this.  Everyone on that jawn could have their card pulled by someone that knows them really well. But is it necessarily a BAD thing? In my opinion, no. It's human nature.

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