"Social Media Identity Crisis" by Jim Everton
You might call it a split personality disorder contracted by spending too much time online.
Strawberriecake goes back to high school. Someone said I looked like Strawberry Shortcake all grown up. And since I’m not short, I combined the leftover words: Strawberriecake. Strawberrycake (with strawberry spelled correctly) was already taken as a username on many websites. I spent time grabbing pieces of video here and there and playing on YouTube and Flickr.
Then there was Product of the Suburbs on MySpace – experimenting with meeting random strangers online was still frowned upon in those days. People kept assuming we were from New York, and we wanted to keep it real. We are from a North Dallas suburb.
The first and only comic made about our life as a young couple.
And now – WebAnna, a combination of all the personalities. She blends in with Everzalez (a combo of my last name and my husband’s last name), a story about a happy couple making art.
I felt confident in my online voice while I was in Dallas and Austin. But after coming to a whole new city to work in a new job at a new company, I got a little nervous. Sometimes I’d see tweets fly by and wonder if that’s how I should be tweeting.
In a recent article about improving your Klout score, Michael Todd wrote, “Decide very precisely why you are online. Trying to be everything to everyone is a recipe for disaster. Produce content and comment mainly in your niche or niches.”
He’s right. The most successful people I know on Twitter have a niche; what’s my niche?
Am I over thinking this? Probably. This over thinking and over analyzing is how I went into a K Hole and worked myself into a social media identity crisis.
This internal dialogue was also the reason I interviewed Amanada Q. She seems so secure in her online voice. Her main advice: Just be cool, man.
I also talked about this with Jared Degnan, and he said he had a similar experience; it’s like a mid-life crisis for people who have been online since before MySpace. To help give himself direction, he creates rules. This is sort of like a mission statement, but a little more casual.
These are my rules:
1. Stay positive
2. Respect the medium along with the message
"Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear."
3. Post about what makes the world go round: news, money, politics, culture and all forms of art
4. For Everzalez, we’ve always had “adventures in media.” We love that there are all types of media, or mediums, to tell our story.
5. Be yourself / keep it real / be authentic
6. “Start believing in yourself.” – Michael Todd
Those last two rules are what really cleared it all up for me.
I’d love to hear of any similar experiences you have had and/ or any words of advice. Don’t be shy – leave a comment!
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I understand this completely. It took me a long time to join Twitter because every combo of my name was taken (renee rice is rather common), I settled on “tweetrenee” it was cute, but really didn’t mean anything to me. I am a total geek – which means I obsess over things and have many collections, this can make my tweets seem a little scattered. I recently changed all my usernames on Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, etc to “reneegallifrey“ this fits me more because Gallifrey is a Doctor Who reference, and Doctor Who is what I love to obsess about most. I was a little nervous to make this jump, but I have faith that as long as I stay true to myself, I will be better off for the name changes.
I noticed that you updated your user name on Twitter and thought maybe you had changed it to your married name (assuming Rice was your maiden name). I need to get into this Dr. Who show. There were tons of Whos walking around during DragonCon. And there is the message again: it’s best to stay true to yourself. Love it – ag
I appriciate your writting. Keep it up!
But can i ask some thing. You like yourself too much right! Good!
So provedly you say -”Be yourself”