Back to the Future: Myspace and Gen Z Digital Identity

Gen Zs reject the sterile, constrained online identities encouraged by older social platforms in favor of more customized forms of online expression.

Zuckerberg’s conviction in a single identity led him to require real names on Facebook. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, online identity was pseudonymous: on AOL Instant Messenger, you were soccergirl7 or doglover42. (I’m sorry to say that I was sexyrexy3617—a friend convinced me that it would be both funny and cool. It was neither.) By mandating... See more

Noah Beck, a TikTok creator with 30 million followers, recently said: “If you look at the most successful people on TikTok, they do relatable things. They’ll never be perfect. They’ll never show a perfect existence.”

Scapin’, for instance, lets anyone create customized virtual spaces to hang out with friends or strangers. In some ways, it’s Roblox for adults. Other startups, like Dreamworld and Manticore Games, are blurring the lines of sandbox games, social networks, and customized virtual spaces.

What’s so interesting about the Dolly Parton Challenge is how it conveys something that everyone implicitly understands: we all have disparate identities across the internet.