"Blurred Lines" By Paige Payne

The internet has always been constant and yet every changing; in other words, the internet has a “place” doesn’t move but the “spaces” within change whether in the form of updated versions been added with new content.

The internet is what I called a “blurred place” because you can choose to become someone different through the online chats and virtual reality games or you can remain to be true to yourself through uploading pictures of daily events on Instagram or Facebook, Snapchat or other social networks.

In doing so people create narratives, stories that can be rewritten or re-edited if they want to change how things happened or add something they’ve forgotten to speak about. No other form allows this which makes the internet special.  

A funny thing I’ve noticed about this is that once something has been uploaded to the internet say a picture or a comment even if you delete it it’s never truly gone but you rewrite or edit the comment or the photo; that’s what I find funny; nothing is really gone and yet we can change it.

I love Laurie McNeill’s first line of his article “There’s no “I” in network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman auto/biography” (McNiell. L, “There’s no “I” in network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman auto/biography”, Vol 35, No 1. 2012):

“The digital era complicates definitions of the self and its boundaries, both dismantling and sustaining the humanist subject in practices of personal narrative”

The reason for this being it relates to my idea of the internet being a “Blurred place” where how our “real” and “online” selves become blurred or in other words when it comes to the internet what is our “true self”. 

https://masterfile.jcu.edu.au/masterfile6/jsp/viewfile.jsp?as_session_id=32245178DBBF7E4C9B83CFCA4617AE8BC31BE3E&as_id_nr=65005&as_page_nr=1&file_type=.pdf&as_acknowledge=Y 

When the lines between reality and the online world become blurred, it’s hard to dissociate ourselves from it because of the freedom it gives us. I write fanfiction for some of my favourite books and movies and very quickly become immersed in my stories as if I was the main character and I find it very hard concentrate and what I should be doing in reality and not get stuck in my imagination; I sometimes tend to focus more on how can I make the story make sense rather than focusing on study and revision for my subjects and I compare this to how we ourselves in reality.

We could be the shy person in the back of the room or be like everyone else crossing the street and yet we could be the most talkative person an online forum.

If our “true selves” are split into two different “places”; reality and the virtual world how can we determine who we really are?

References

Week 6 Lecture: “Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place, Networked Narratives”

McNiell. L, “There’s no “I” in network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman auto/biography”, Vol 35, No 1. 2012