Social Media Influencers: How they affect our identity.
Social Media.
A big technological phenomenon reaching billions of people from across the globe. In the 21stCentury there was an unexpected rise in the number of internet communities which without a doubt, shows how people are eager to socialize, share content and work with one another regardless of the distance and time between them (Gündüz, 2017).
Digital Bodies: How are they formed?
Via the numerous social media platforms that have increased throughout the years, users have come together and are included in the communication and interaction processes (Gündüz, 2017). According to Bumela (2012), the pragmatic concept called sociability, emphasized that our social identity is more likely to be formed through group memberships, rather than individual existence. Identities online can be expressed in relation to the offline world as well as through interactions one has online. This means that one’s identity emerges from whom one knows, one’s associations and connections (Gündüz, 2017).
“The self is disembodied online; and the -consciousness becomes separated from the body…[but online] it becomes a body itself” (Bukatman, 1993). Online profiles can be interpreted as a form of “digital body” (Boyd & Ellison, 2008) where the users have to construct from scratch themselves to represent important aspects of their identity to be displayed in front of the others.
Social Media Influencers: Why do we relate so much?
With this in mind, one can’t help but divert their attention to these modern social media influencers who display a big part of their lives on the internet for everyone to see, spectate, judge and interpret on their own accord. From filming a day in their lives, the outfits they’re wearing, giving a tour of a house they just bought, pregnancy or engagement announcements amongst many others. By posting content that they’re passionate about, for conversational or advertising purposes, these influencers have gained immense internet popularity amongst the younger generation following their every move. How is it that so many social media users end up caring so much to a person that they don’t even know and become affected by them?
It all boils down to four factors: trustworthiness, similarity, expertise, attractiveness. These aspects give the peer endorser credibility which lure more people in. It is also important to note that often times these influencers share the same age group, interests, behaviours and demographics of their target audience. This links closely to the social identity theory where naturally “the opinions of members of the same group are worth more to people than those of a different group” (Fastenau, 2018). Most importantly, “most influencers belong to the younger age group of millennials, a demographic that is notoriously difficult to reach for marketers” (Fastenau, 2018). Millennial teens are a group dynamic which place importance on forming their own identity. In order to shape their identity, they often look up to role models that they can relate to and is easy to identify with, resulting in the copying and mimicking their behaviours (Fastenau, 2018).
Ultimately, it all depends on how the adolescents choose to process the information they’re getting from these social media influencers, also known as “micro-celebrities” (Carson, 2019). Certain influences can cause harmful impacts on identity development, whilst some can result in positive attributions to characteristics. It is also important to note that not everything we see and perceive on the internet is true, even identities. As William James (1892) wrote; “A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him”. Due to the impact that surveillance has on identity, it often reduces the control that one has over the information that goes out in the world. Consequently, different people start to perceive and treat other individuals differently according to the knowledge they acquired. It is also now commonly known that a lot of the posts that we see online are often tweaked, edited and modified according to what brings more traffic.
So when you decide to compare yourself to what other social media influencers are doing, how they look and how they act, be sure to know what really lies underneath all of the glam and luxury.
This blog is a project for Study Unit DGA3008, University of Malta
References
Gündüz, U. (2017). The Effect of Social Media on Identity Construction. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 8(5), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.1515/mjss-2017-0026
Bumela, L. (2012). THE METAFUNCTIONS REVEALED: EFL LEARNERS’ EXPERIENCE IN MAKING SENSE OF THE TEXT. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 106. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v1i2.88
Bukatman, S. (1993). Terminal Identity. Amsterdam University Press.
boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210–230. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x
Fastenau, J. (2018, November 7). Under the Influence: The Power of Social Media Influencers. Medium. https://medium.com/crobox/under-the-influence-the-power-of-social-media-influencers-5192571083c3
Carson, E. (2019, May 5). Social Media Influencers Have Influenced the Identity Formation of Teenagers — Debating Communities and Networks X. Debating Communities and Networks X Conference 2019. http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/05/social-media-influencers-have-influenced-the-identity-formation-of-teenagers/
