Comments on: perspective http://www.randomwisdom.com/2005/07/342 photos, electronic projects, and other random stuff Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:38:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Big George http://www.randomwisdom.com/2005/07/342/comment-page-1#comment-38478 Big George Tue, 19 Jul 2005 02:52:02 +0000 http://www.randomwisdom.com/2005/07/342/#comment-38478 The problems and implications of self-representation has for some time a matter of my endless fascination. My own little LJ page, with its sporadic updates and peculiar non-sequiturs, its rambling, its prior expression of opinions and feelings I can neither presently claim to nor even to hold, has created in my mind a lot of questions in its own right. I've been self-conscious for a while, for example, of the fact that the single greatest enabler to my personally venturing to make a post is having my tongue firmly in cheek. Satirizing the very representation I self-consciously construct on such a forum is one of the things I most enjoy -- by creating, for example, a version of myself that I, for my own part, find both humorous and amusing. I've noticed also (as a sociology student commenting on an old post of mine was only too keen to bring to my attention) was that only thing that often prevents such a tongue-in-cheek construct from appearing obnoxious and even incendiary is the inside-knowledge of who I am; not only do I almost purposely misrepresent myself, but I seem to do so in a very specific way: without, in fact, deviating too much from who I really am. I have rather a distrust for the supposed stability of meaning underlying such self-representations. What, I ask, do our blog personas truly signify? And is that thing being signified, in fact, stable and unchanging? Perhaps I can be accused of flaunting this very distrust with gleeful abandon. The problems and implications of self-representation has for some time a matter of my endless fascination. My own little LJ page, with its sporadic updates and peculiar non-sequiturs, its rambling, its prior expression of opinions and feelings I can neither presently claim to nor even to hold, has created in my mind a lot of questions in its own right.

I’ve been self-conscious for a while, for example, of the fact that the single greatest enabler to my personally venturing to make a post is having my tongue firmly in cheek. Satirizing the very representation I self-consciously construct on such a forum is one of the things I most enjoy — by creating, for example, a version of myself that I, for my own part, find both humorous and amusing.

I’ve noticed also (as a sociology student commenting on an old post of mine was only too keen to bring to my attention) was that only thing that often prevents such a tongue-in-cheek construct from appearing obnoxious and even incendiary is the inside-knowledge of who I am; not only do I almost purposely misrepresent myself, but I seem to do so in a very specific way: without, in fact, deviating too much from who I really am.

I have rather a distrust for the supposed stability of meaning underlying such self-representations. What, I ask, do our blog personas truly signify? And is that thing being signified, in fact, stable and unchanging?

Perhaps I can be accused of flaunting this very distrust with gleeful abandon.

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