Self-identity: Tell me about yourself, fill out this “about me” section, what’s your favorite color? You answer these questions using whatever descriptors you like to think best describe who you are and what you think other people should know about you. This is your self-identity. However, I am here to tell you that they do not, in fact, describe you, nor are they what other people should know about you. They represent the most basic, cookie-cutter, internet-based descriptors one can think of that make them fit within whatever crowd they are attempting to fit into.
The Origins Of Today’s Self-Identity
The internet is a wonderful tool filled to the brim with information. It allows you to learn almost anything your heart desires. It allows you the freedom to read, write, and say almost anything you want to whomever you want whenever you want. It has offered the opportunity to meet and connect with an almost infinite number of people from an equally infinite number of places. However, this long-distance ritual leads to watered-down, shallow, inane descriptions of ourselves as an introduction to other watered-down, shallow, inane descriptions.
Ever since the first internet chat rooms were brought online, users were tasked with the impossible feat of scaling down their self-identity into little check boxes in order to describe who they are to total strangers that they may never meet in the real world (A/S/L? Anyone?). We talked to these people and told them that we are from this place, we like these things, listen to this music, and eat this food. This painted a picture of who we were, and they accepted it and offered the same information in return, and we painted the same picture about them.
The Ritual Continues Today
This ritual continues today through various social media sites and dating apps galore. Swipe Tinder once, and you’ll see multitudes of self-identified travelers, hunters, social butterflies, boss-babes, and taco aficionados. You take that information and say to yourself, “Hey, I love tacos, too!” Swipe right and it’s a date! The problem comes once the date happens and both parties realize that those basic, shallow self-identities are nothing more than a shell of who the other person is. They tell us nothing about who that person actually is.
Take me for example; if you were to peruse my Instagram profile, you will see a description that says: “Husband/Father/Christian/Conservative/Veteran”. But what does all of that mean? I know that each of those words means specific things. But, do they really tell you anything about me as a person? You can infer the type of person I am based on your understanding of what each of those descriptors means. It can be based on your own life experiences interacting with someone that fits one or more of those descriptors, or based on online discourse surrounding those words, maybe in political arenas.
One-Size Does Not Fit All
However, one size does not fit all. What if you didn’t know those self-identity facts about me, and I told you I drove an electric car? Would you infer that maybe I was more left-wing instead? What if I told you I wear cowboy boots religiously? Would you infer that I only listen to country music? Would you be shocked if I said I was an avid Hip-Hop listener? Would you be perplexed by the number of boy band and Spice Girls songs in my music library? Probably. Why? Because you don’t associate boy bands, Spice Girls, and Hip-Hop with cowboy boots or electric cars, and certainly not Conservative, Christian, Veterans.
But that’s what we do almost instinctively. We take little bits of information and paint a picture of ourselves that others can then take and create their own picture based on the same information. Unfortunately, and much to the detriment of our relationships and even ourselves, it’s almost always an incomplete picture.
What Is The Solution To Fixing Our Self-Identity?
The easy answer is to just dig a little deeper when contemplating our self-identity. The hard truth is a little deeper than that. We need to step away from the little check boxes that the internet forces us into. Stop living our lives through computers and cell phones and instead focus our energy on the people and places we see every day. Our own communities are filled with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of individual characters, each with their own story to tell.
Stop relying on shallow buzzwords to introduce yourself. Stop relying on those words given as a description from someone to pigeonhole them into who you think they are based on those words. Not every conservative Christian is a far-right nazi that wants to control women and keep them barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Not every liberal is a Marxist commie who wants to seize the means of production and eat the rich.
Talk to real people, get to know the real them. Don’t rely on preconceived ideas of what an individual is based on words or characteristics. Yes, I am a father. But does that tell you whether or not I am a good one? No. You can’t know that unless you see me interacting with my children. You’re a police officer? Cool! Does that tell me anything about you as a person? Not really.
Are you a hard worker? Family man or woman? Introverted or extroverted? Quiet and stoic or loud and boisterous? Can you be relied upon if someone needs your help in the middle of the night? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve, or do you keep your emotions buried, choosing only to show them to the initiated few that you trust? This is the self-identity that truly matters. Anything else is just fluff.
Parting Words
Be who you are. I mean that. Do not let society tell you who you should or should not be. Dig deep down and find out who you really are as a human being, and put it all out there for the world to see. You are more than just buzzword descriptions and internet memes. Your self-identity should reflect that.
Talk to your neighbors and the store clerk at the grocery store. Be an active participant in your community first before trying to impress strangers on the other side of the country. But also, do not stop someone else from being who they are, either. Allow them the freedom and space to let themselves out. Free them from their little internet-imposed boxes. Ask them about their hopes, wants, needs, and fears. Let them be who they are, you keep being who you are, and I’ll keep tapping my cowboy boots to Tupac blaring in my electric car.
