Online Personas and Brad Paisley

Yes, he’s so much cooler online, but whose idea of “cool” is it? 

The main character in Brad Paisley’s Music Video (other than Paisley himself) uses MySpace to create an alternate image of himself that is much cooler.  It’s obviously not him, but he creates an online image of himself as he wants to be, and the kind of person that he thinks that other people will like.  Because he’s cool online, he can message and chat with all of the cool people he wants to hang out with.  But does it ever occur to him that the online people he’s chatting with are false, “so much cooler” personas themselves?

I have to say, the characters are much more interesting—that is to say, “amusing”—offline.  Then they have their individual quirks—the dork has his tuba and his lightsaber, the girl next door twirls her baton only at the risk of her own bodily well-being, and the parents…let’s not go there.    

Coming back to the idea of “cool,” the online persona creation in the music video subscribes to idea that there is a narrow type of attributes that equal “cool.”  He’s a singer, has abs of iron, lives in Malibu, has lots of parties, and drives a cool car.  This reminds me of another song performed by Nickelback, about how cool it is to be a rock star, and how everyone wants to be a rock star.  Obviously, not many people can or do fill this or similar descriptions of “cool.”

 

But with the internet, it’s now easy to create an online persona that’s “cool.”  If you don’t like the way you are, or don’t think people will like you the way you are, you can use the internet to create a “cool” persona.  That “cool” persona can be accepted by other cool people. 

This creates several conflicts and problems, though.  First of all, it reinforces the image of “coolness” as the ideal person.  As the false, “cool” personas proliferate, other people come to believe that they have to conform to the “cool” ideal.  Ironically, very few or none of the “cool” people seen online may fit that ideal! 

       

Secondly, cool personas reinforce dissatisfaction with a person’s true self, and allow a person to avoid confronting and dealing with this dissatisfaction with himself.  Why bother thinking about why you don’t like who you are, or why you’re afraid to be yourself, when you can be someone else online?  When problems are inescapable, we have to confront them, but when there’s an easy way out, we can ignore them. 

Thirdly, those people brave enough to be themselves online tend to be ignored by the people pretending to be “cool.”  Remember the music video—the characters only want to hang out with “cool” people.   They don’t want to chat with the people who are similar to their real selves and would like the characters for who they really are!  

Additionally, from my personal experience on networking sites like MySpace, eventually all of the “cool” personas start to sound alike.  They say the same things, send the same kind of glittery holiday e-cards, and have the same kind of pictures on their profiles.  It’s almost like having everyone vanilla or everyone chocolate, when we could be more like a bowl of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.  Except for the ear-wax jelly beans.

           

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~ by skwalker on January 17, 2009.