Life in the Network

I've always enjoyed the story of Alice in Wonderland. The complexity of the story lends itself to analysis beyond the layer of fun on the surface reveals imagery of a completely unexpected nature. Something so fanciful and far from reality seemed like a good antithesis to myself. Not going to lie, this picture is pretty ridiculous however it is a perfect example of how one can represent themselves as such a farce on the internet.

The idea of gender identity on the internet is largely driven by stereotypes as opposed to what people chose to represent themselves as. I like Gurak's example that starts at the bottom of page 72 showing how people reinforce these opinions. It is always easy to find posts supporting stereotypes and even easier to look over the posts that discount them. It seems to me that services such as Meez seek to perpetuate these stereotypes with the default appearances they give when a gender is chosen.

While these stereotypes are an ingrained part of the internet, general users can often benefit from them by finding easy ways to disguise themselves as a member of the opposite gender or of any social group for that matter. The stereotypes provide a barrier in terms of a wall and a blind. One to shut out, the other to hide behind. They have both draw-backs and uses to those who act on or exploit them.