Not 24601, or s3539876 in this case.

My first task as a uni student is one thats been repeated throughout my schooling, so its only right that it appear here; a self-portrait. It was easy enough in primary school to pick up a pencil, look in the mirror, and draw what I saw. The results weren’t pretty, but it was easy.

But a multi-media presentation of who I am is the criteria I have been given. I have to sum up ‘me’ in two audio posts, four picture, two videos and less than fifty words.

Hence the title, Who Am I? What parts make up the essential sum of me? Am I my hobbies, my traits, my style, what I do, what I say?

Ive taken a look at the media that already shows the story of me. My Facebook is relatively blank, since I only use it for messaging and event invites nowadays. The last post I made was half a month ago when I successfully fulfilled a lifetime dream of re-creating that genius Ron Stoppable invention, Nacos. All the goodness of nachos wrapped up in a soft taco shell, and I had to share it with the world! Or at least my 70 Facebook friends at least. While I do love nacos, I don’t think their such a quintessential part of me that they deserve a place in my self-portrait.

Twitter is where I try to be witty, to grab peoples attention in 140 characters or less. My most used tag is #WWPCD, or What Would Peggy Carter Do? The answer is usually punch a guy and defeat sexism. Twitter is a zone for sharing thoughts that pop into your head, for quick snippets of your daily life where your brain-to-keyboard filter is removed. Is this enough to show who I am, or is the character limit cropping out an essential part of ‘me’?

Finally, Instagram. Here lies a medium I can’t fail to consider, the selfie. My last dozen or so posts have been selfies, and show a dizzying range of looks. 50’s, grunge, hippie, every time I have tried out a new look I have invariably posted it on Instagram. So which of them is ‘me’?

Online is where we can control how people see us, it is the ‘edited footage’ that makes up the story of our lives, and undoubtably we tweak this footage to seem appealing/interesting/compelling to the audience we are addressing. Each medium reveals a different facet of who we are, what aspect of ourselves we are trying to focus. Combing these gives us a greater understanding of a person, yet no-one can truly be known through their social media.

Online we construct our personalities and cannot resist letting the truth get in the way of a good tweet. So to create a self-portrait of myself I must analyse not just what my social media says about me, but what it doesn’t. What have I hidden from the (online) world that I can reveal in this assignment?