I’m known on Facebook for being a bit controversial. I’m not interested in sharing pictures of my food and I am interested in having intense conversations about ideas, which means my Facebook page is mostly discussion and debates and has very little to do with my actual life. I’ve lost friends over my persona on there – even though that persona is only one aspect of my personality.
On Imzy, I act differently. I’m less controversial because I don’t personally know the people I’m having discussions with (On Facebook, I know the people I’m chatting with and therefore have a clear sense for who will be interested in what topic and what kind of content warnings I should post to help people filter themselves into and out of discussions.
On reddit, I act differently. I’m less likely to comment there unless I really have something to say, and I don’t engage in any particularly controversial discussions because if I wanted to argue with angry trolls, I’d head to YouTube’s comment section.
On Twitter, I act differently. I don’t post much on Twitter, but when I do, it’s because I know specifically who I want to tag and what hashtags I want to use to reach the right people. I don’t put my personality on there much or attempt to have real conversations.
On Instagram, I act differently. It’s 90% pictures of my cat and I don’t think I’ve ever expressed an actual opinion on there.
My behavior changes dramatically depending on which platform I’m on. And there are a lot of reasons for that, ranging from the people I’m interacting with to the site’s tools to the platform’s culture. I honestly don’t know that I could convey one consistent picture of myself on every platform I use, because they’re all just so different.
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