They’re “platforms,” new stages for exhibiting our authentic selves. Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr aren’t virtual-reality experiences. The rise of social networking deflated this idea of a discrete virtual identity. Avatars could look like humanoid drones (the ones you pushed around in the life-simulation game The Sims), or robotic cyberpunks (the role-players who populated the “virtual world” of Second Life), or bright little cartoon images of woodland animals or Zodiac signs (the “ buddy icons” AOL users chose to represent themselves). The Web used to be framed as a brave new world, so unlike “real life” that you had to shed your terrestrial form and build a digital you to navigate the Information Superhighway.
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