Facebook erases discontinuity
In the old world, you could lead multiple lives and never fear that they would necessarily intersect. You could be a songwriter by night and a suit by day and not worry that the maintenance of those dual identities would cause a conflict. Similarly, you could assume a certain identity in childhood and, over time, reinvent yourself each time a new chapter of your life began. You could go from being a shy introvert in high school with a certain circle of friends to an extrovert in your professional career.
Again, with little risk of intersection.
Facebook is changing all of that in a fascinating way. The ability to manage separate existences is increasingly eroding. I’m seeing that very directly. Friends from high school and college popping into my life after years of no communication. Getting back in touch with my first year roommate, Kurt, after an extended absence. So that’s kind of interesting.
But also weird.
More weird is the dilemma for an artist or musician. Should I use my existing Facebook profile/persona to market my new musical endeavors? Many people through those mediums don’t necessarily associate me with music. And there are friends from different elements of life such as my day job that I haven’t been as vocal with about the fact that I make music. Should I create a ‘band page’ and try to get ‘fans’ with the ‘band page’ just being another page saying ‘Sam Jacobs’? That feels like a pain in the ass and, in the current state, a little too opt-in for people. So the number of fans I’d actually get would be depressing.
You can use Facebook privacy filters but from my perspective they’re still a little unwieldy. It feels like too much effort to try and maintain different personalitieis.
Here’s the point: the effort and benefits that accrue from maintaining dual personalities is changing and, pursuant to the authenticity vibe we’ve been discussing, it seems like the better answer is to just accept that all of my related ventures and interests will need to co-exist under one roof and that roof will be fairly transparent.
So friend me, I guess.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 am
I think you should separate Sam Jacobs from Flying Change; or don’t use Facebook for music. Facebooks seems more to me as a personal update of your life, rather than marketing. Obviously link to TFC from Facebook, but I agree it could be weird to maintain an alter ego on it.