The Youth’s Online Self-Presentation – Are You Managing It?

Anindya Widita, B.A., M.A,

It is no surprise that generation Z is the dominant user of social media. Their whole life revolves around the use of it to gain information of various aspect. According to McKinsey (2018), Gen Z appreciates individual expression and tend to stay away from certain label of identity. They also own awareness toward various social and global issues, likely obtained through their social media activity. To channel their thought and express their identity, they rely on social media. However, certainly the previous generation also has adapted their life around social media.

How one displays themselves online, in social media can be considered a self-presentation, which is managed with an objective in mind, can evolve into a personal brand, or self-brand. Though not everyone posts content with that purpose of having a ‘brand’ for themselves, many seem to desire in creating an image, an identity for themselves that the public can see with their social media content.

Petrucă (2016) argued that to increase visibility of someone’s image, personal brand needs to be managed and maintained continuously. With the trend of ‘influencer’, lifestyle blogger, etc. rising in platforms such as Instagram and YouTube, more users, especially younger generation sees that as an influence or an opportunity to present themselves similarly through their personal account. Having said that, there are also plenty who chose to use other inspiration to start their self-presentation journey in social media. For example, study-inspired blogger, which was previously discussed in past articles, or even fan account.

The thing about how one presents themselves online is while of course it could be their real representation of their personality or identity, in some cases it could also be the different version of their persona. This is not to say that it is a fake identity, it is just that they chose to highlight another persona of themselves that was probably not seen or exposed in offline context. It is an interesting aspect of self-presentation through online media that is intriguing to be explored further.

How about you? How do you think your social media account looks like to others? Is it simply a display of your daily activities or do you have another concept to it?

References:

Francis, T. & Hoefel, F. (2018, Nov. 12). ‘True Gen’: Generation Z and its implications for companies.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/true-gen-generation-z-and-its-implications-for-companies

Petrucă, I. (2016). Personal Branding through Social Media. International Journal of Communication Research, 6(4), 389–392.