Saved by Jack Sun
Identity play.
Authenticity brings us to avatars. This might seem a strange connection: aren’t avatars, by nature, inauthentic? After all, avatars entail being someone other than yourself. But for many people, avatars are a vessel for more authentic self-expression.
Rex Woodbury • Throughlines (Part I)
The internet hasn’t killed eccentricity but it makes it harder for anyone who lives (at least partly) online to live a specific life. The internet either crushes specificity, mocks it, ignores it, assimilates and commodifies it, or all of the above. It leads to a personality type that Henry James described in The Wings of the Dove: “You're familiar... See more
Molly Young on Substack
We are currently living in a time when the lines between fantasy and reality are blurring and virtual worlds are creating room for new rules of self-expression and identity. Success in virtual realms like the metaverse won’t be driven by those who adhere to traditional norms but by those willing to establish entirely new ones.
Rebecca Johnson • Drawing Wisdom From the ‘Weird’
Spheres of Self: Performativity and Parasociality in the Metaverse
objects.koji-cdn.com- "To exist on platforms is to be subject to this kind of continual identity reconstitution, to fluidity. Self-branding attempts to hide this inevitability by claiming agency over it, as though by choosing to turn our identity into capital, it becomes a free choice. Self-obfuscation, on the other hand, effectively embraces it through a kind of acce... See more