Frozen in fear every time we appear
Im not surprised and really, why should I be?
See nothing wrong
See nothing wrong
So sick and tired of all these pictures of me
Completely wrong
Totally wrong
Go walking by
Here come another guy…

Elliot Smith

I was sitting in a closing session at Learning 2.008 with Ewan McIntosh and a group of teachers, and the conversation became very free and loose. The session was designed to be an open gathering, a place to discuss any lingering ideas and end the conference. People were throwing out ideas, while others either let them drop or set them up for a volley. I don’t remember everything we discussed: something about being able to download your brain some time in the future, buying domain names for your children to be sure you are in control of their web presence, and Facebook profile pictures.

Ewan joked about how he couldn’t understand why people would change their Facebook profile picture every other day. The room chuckled a bit as he made the comment, but I smiled uncomfortably. I have changed my profile picture 31 times in the last year.

At the time, I didn’t have the energy to explain why I felt the need to constantly update what I look like, but recently I have been thinking a lot about the idea of profile pictures, avatars, self-expression, and the online social networking community. I think I may have a response.

These ideas began to germinate in earnest last week after two separate incidents. The first was after a talk I had with Bud Hunt regarding the difference between a network and a community, and the second was after I started to look at avatar creation sites for my students. I am the computer club teacher, and I will soon start the Web 2.0 network journey with a group of ten 4th-6th graders.

What do the pictures of ourselves that we present to the world mean? How can a simple profile picture affect a person’s place within a community of strangers?

You may be thinking that a topic likes this is at best superficial and at worst a study of narcissism and vanity, but I ask that you bear with me.

The  wikipedia article on Self says:

The self is a key construct in several schools of psychology, broadly referring to the cognitive representation of one’s identity. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology stems from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the object that is known. Current views of the self in psychology diverge greatly from this early conception, positioning the self as playing an integral part in human motivation, cognition, affect, and social identity.

The article about Self-Portrait goes on to say:

The self-portraits of many Contemporary artists and Modernists often are characterized by a strong sense of narrative, often but not strictly limited to vignettes from the artists life-story. Sometimes the narrative resembles fantasy, roleplaying and fiction.
The self-portrait can be a very effective form of advertising for an artist, especially of course for a portrait painter.

The self-portraits of many Contemporary artists and Modernists often are characterized by a strong sense of narrative, often but not strictly limited to vignettes from the artists life-story. Sometimes the narrative resembles fantasy, role playing and fiction.

Finally Jay B. McDaniel says:

When one attains enlightenment in Zen Buddhism, at least two things are realized. First, one realizes that the deepest level of one’s life — what in Zen is called the “true self” — is always here-and-now. And second, one understands that this true self, even though here-and-now, is always changing.

What does this all mean to me, and what does it have to do with my network avatars and profile pictures? This is what I took away from the quotes above: The self is a key construct of one’s identity. Self-portraits are characterized by a strong sense of narrative. Sometimes the narrative resembles fantasy, role-playing and fiction. True self, even though here-and-now, is always changing.

In other words: Our sense of identity is derived from the story we tell the world and this story is constantly changing.

In an online world, the images we present of ourselves can be the most powerful representations we offer. I see myself as more than a static promotional portrait. I am a being in a constant state of flux, and I feel it is crucial that these transformations be presented to my equally malleable network.  After talking with Bud, I realized that our social networks can never really know exactly who we are, and let’s be honest even our closest friends can only guess. How can we build community, if each individual member does not really know who any other member is?

We present fragments of ourselves online, as if offering cyberspace a random set of pixels, will somehow paint a clear picture of who we are.  We use blog posts, Tweets, Skype calls, profile pics, book lists, photos, podcasts, and music sharing sites to scatter pieces of ourselves into a giant void, hoping that maybe somebody out there is picking up the pieces, and what’s more we hope that once they have assembled some sort if idea of who we are, they will like the image enough to start building a community around it.

An online community is nothing more than a group of people sharing the same puzzle of online debris. I guess my philosophy is that the more open, honest, and raw I can be, the clearer picture I can paint, thus creating the most authentic community for myself. As my resignation from my job proves, this openness is not always the best route to take, but it is the only one I know. I believe in web 2.0. I believe open honest communication is one of the best tools we have to building a better world.  All of this talk about technology and collaboration means more to me than mere talking points. I need this. Humanities needs this. Our hope in the future lies in teaching young people to learn to express themselves as honesty and openly as they can, so we can begin to tear down the walls that have been constructed by generations of cultural, nationalistic, and religious engineers.

I am still evading why any of this is relevant to profile pictures and avatars. The portrait is one of the most powerful ways to share ones identity. The tiny picture next to each Tweet is the first impression many newcomers to any network will see. I get excited when I see people change their photos, because I feel that they are real, changing, and growing.

I am not the same person one day from the next, so how can my picture stay the same month after month. I felt a bit uncomfortable after I changed my picture to a computer-generated avatar. It felt as if I was cheating somehow. But after a few days, I am starting to feel more comfortable with the image, because I know that it too will change. This is simply a stage of who I am at this stage of my life. I love looking back and seeing all of the people I have been:

If I am a collage educated father and teacher, and I am still dealing with these kinds of identity issues, imagine what our students are going through. In an image-saturated world, they need to be having conversations about self, identity, and community, especially if we want them to be participating in a world where they may not meet every person they interact with online. We need to teach them how to sort through the debris and construct the puzzles of the people they encounter online. More importantly we need to teach them how to express themselves as clearly as they can, so they are able to paint the most authentic picture of who they are.  An avatar or profile picture should mean more to us than some throw away superficial exercise in vanity. These pictures are who we are online, so they deserve thought and attention.