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I'm so much cooler online

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Revengeofthenerds, Mar 15, 2017.

  1. Revengeofthenerds

    Revengeofthenerds
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    When I prepare to interview someone, the first place I go is Facebook. I call it doing my background research, and it is simply shocking how much info you can turn up about someone for free (never mind if you use a paid service, which I currently don't). Then I check out their LinkedIn, Pinterest, those kinds of things. For my purposes, I'm mainly looking for things they are passionate about that they didn't put in their resume, to help paint a bigger picture of who they are.

    If they're an aggie, I know that they enjoy talking about themselves and low-intellect conversation. If they're from Florida, I know there's a strong likelihood they're carrying something contagious and/or have one or more felonies for impressively creative "mistakes in the past." If two out of every three pictures are selfies with them giving the pouty face duck lips expression, I know they enjoy underage drinking, Florida George Line, and will show up in their most formal "I'm going out after this" clothes while giving me canned answers that make no sense when I ask them non-standard interview questions.

    Point is, everyone, for lack of a better term, has an online "brand" these days. You are one thing in person, and you are a refined version of yourself on different platforms. And to suit the purpose of those platforms, or your goal on the platform, your brand changes across mediums.

    On TiB, I'm the redneck who has ducks and frequently injures himself in increasingly retarded ways. On facebook, my "friends" are mainly my inbred in-laws who are conservative only because being liberal requires them to think too hard. So I'm the asshole who floods their feed with cute pictures of my kid and wife they wanna see, then makes an aggressively atheist joke once I know they're paying attention. I have a Pinterest filled with cooking recipes, child-related projects I wanna build, and landscaping ideas.... because fuck you, yes I have a pinterest. Now kiss my cock. At work, I'm the self-deprecating prankster who knows a little about a lot and a lot about a few specialized areas. And at home I'm the Whataburger husband -- have it her way. It's just easier.

    Focus: What is your "brand" on different platforms? Why?

    Alt. Focus: Which online harbingers do you feel are most consistently accurate?
     
  2. Juice

    Juice
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    Moderately Gender Fluid

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    Im pretty much the same across the board. Most of the things I would say on here are things I would say in real life, depending on the audience of course. I only really use Instagram and LinkedIn as far as social media. I dont use Twitter or Snapchat at all. On Facebook, currently I have my account set to only follow this one guy I went to high school with that posts all kind of weird shit. I also have the site language set to "Pirate," which makes for an amusing experience every time he wants to share something, which is quite often. As for myself, I post rarely if at all.
     
  3. Crown Royal

    Crown Royal
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    Just call me Topher

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    The fact I keep my "online personality" the same across the board has kept me steady on here, and expelled from Twitter three times (proudly). I don't like snapchat, don't even know what the fuck LinkedIn is and haven't logged on to Facebook in at least six years.

    I'm not much of an Internet person, this (and the old board) has always been my favourite site. I'm not really different in real life than I am on here.
     
  4. Kubla Kahn

    Kubla Kahn
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    For years I had used Facebook as an extension of my college drinking life. It really was mostly college kids posting drunk pics almost exclusively before it became mainstream in all facets of society. Since it was documenting mostly my drunken exploits I tried to take care not to have it accessible to potential employers or close family. I know my mom, who've Ive never friended because of my 'online' personality, snooped it around the time of my DUI trial and she flipped thinking they'd enter it all as evidence. While drinking, still, figures prominently in my life Ive slowed down the frequency and I've switched mainly to posting just updates of my hobbies outside of boozing. Stuff like cookings, huntings, gardening etc. I will say I am a lot more open here in the semi anonymity of this board than my other social media. Then again we've all been here long enough that even then, there are things I don't bring up because I still don't want to be "judged" by people Im pretty open with and have "known" for quite a while.

    Maybe I just have low self esteem but even puffing myself up online feels dumb as fuck. I don't lie that well to begin with so making up some fake persona never really had anything for me.
     
  5. rei

    rei
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    I ran a yugioh message board for eleven years, so I mostly just hope my prospective employers dont know how to use google
     
  6. dixiebandit69

    dixiebandit69
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    I'm the same here as I am everywhere else, both online and in real life.
     
  7. audreymonroe

    audreymonroe
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    The most powerful cervix... in the world...

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    I mostly use Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and family and give them a sense of what's going on in my life and "hanging out" with them in a way. Plus I can kind of use it like a little record of my life - it's fun to scroll through what I posted one year and have such a clear idea/memory of what was going on at any given time in the past ten years, so there are things that I post mostly just for myself for that purpose. Since there's no character limits to contend with, I also use it the way stand up comics use open mics, and will kind of test out little bits for writing. Things that have started out as Facebook posts have worked their way into my writing plenty of times (and have also gotten me a few gigs).

    For Twitter and Instagram, I'm pretty consciously using them as marketing tools for myself. I get Googled when I pitch things and after I have something published, so I always try and keep that in mind when posting things. Your clips and credentials seem to matter so much less than you as a person when it comes to writing these days it seems, so I want them to be able to look at those public-facing things and get a sense of my voice and my personality and what I care about and what I'm knowledgeable about. Instagram is the most ~curated~ as I'm guessing it is for most people, and since it's visual and all it's become mostly oriented to art world happenings. But neither of them are as professional and shmoozy as they should be. I should be doing a lot more networking and a lot less posting silly jokes for my friends or snapshots of my cat making a weird face if I want to really have them serve that purpose. But I like my silly jokes and my stupid cat so social media-y they remain.

    Snapchat is half pictures of my pets and half nudes that I either send to my friends platonically or I send to people I've had sex with/am having sex with/hope to have sex with one day non-platonically.

    ~I~ think I come off exactly as I am on here, but whenever I meet people from here they always seem a little surprised (or tell me I'm not really who they were expecting). And it's never in the same way either. I'm not as intimidating, or I'm much more intimidating, or I'm not as fancy, or I'm not as JAPy. But then when they read my posts after meeting me they tell me I do actually sound like I do in real life. I think it's kind of hard to tell when I'm joking around or being sarcastic or fucking with people until you already have my voice in your head. Plus I forget how little I talk about all these huge chunks of my life - like writing and art things and things I do around the city and what not - because there's no space for them to come up or I don't think it's particularly the right audience for them that I should know I'm not exactly painting a well-rounded fully-formed person here and the blanks get filled in in all sorts of weird ways.
     
  8. toddamus

    toddamus
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    I don't have alter egos or different personalities, unless its like say a work personality, how I act around with friends, dates, normal things.

    In general I never try to impress anyone, aside from a date, and give no fucks about looking cool.

    What you guys see on here is a genuine representation. If we met in person of course I'd keep more things private but who doesn't?
     
  9. Durbanite

    Durbanite
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    Like most others, I am pretty much the same here as I am anywhere else. I hardly ever post to FB anymore (I haven't for a few years) but I do use Twitter a lot, and it's basically how I sound in real life. I'm also pretty sure my Twitter would have very little impact on my employment as 95+% of my Twitter posts are sports rants/comments. I used to (up until recently) blog, but that was sports-related too - I stopped simply because there are only so many times you can hammer a point home about your sports team and I had no inspiration or will to continue as a result. I also post infrequently to Instagram - last week I posted some wave damage on the beach promenade where I go walking most days, so it was sand and upturned wooden poles on the promenade from the strong seas uprooting and washing stuff up over the beach. I rarely take "selfies"and I never use a filter on any pictures, which seems to be a rarity in itself. I also have a LinkedIn but I very rarely use it as I find it more difficult to use than the other social media sites.
     
  10. GTE

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    Pretty much the same in real life as I am on here. Kind of wall flower in large groups but I listen to / read everything.
     
  11. shimmered

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    I'm probably creepy IRL? Maybe? I don't know. I'm fairly introverted so I tend to like to drink with the crowd before I speak with the crowd.

    I used to coach a fellow board member at my gym so there's that. He said I was just like he figured.

    Like AM mentioned, once you have my voice in your head it's all you'll hear when you read my stuff. I don't generally write more formally than I speak, unless it's for something professional.

    My personal Instagram is really kid/dog/hiking/beer pictures.
    My Facebook is lots of kid/dog/political (I'm an asshole) stuff.
    My Twitter is almost exclusively for baseball and news.

    Professionally my pages (Facebook and Instagram) are all about hair and girly shit and makeup. I love those things, perhaps not the way others do...and it's hard too straddle that fence because I can alienate myself from both audiences.
     
  12. $100T2

    $100T2
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    My Facebook is basically pictures of my kids, my Mastiff and either cooking or woodworking stuff. I also have all the privacy settings totally maxed out. I have been around Fortune 500 America long enough to know to whitewash the shit out of Facebook.
     
  13. ODEN

    ODEN
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    I don't really know how to best explain myself here other than to say people tell me I act more like someone in their 50's than in their 30's. I think that is a function of my chosen career field and working in remote locations for so long; almost my entire staff and cohort in general are older than me. I can't recount how many conversations about retirement and investing I have had in the last year. There is no whimsy left in me and sometimes I wish I could be more at ease but it's not there. So, when I do meet new people I can come off as aloof as I tend to keep most people at arms length. I also confuse people if politics and religion come up, which I never bring up and avoid like the plague because I do have pretty strong opinions and am not afraid to share. With that said, most people confuse me for belonging to the opposite party from which they support. Sometimes I explain it to them, sometimes I don't.

    I much prefer a quiet drink amongst a small group of people exchanging ideas to a bar or club any day. Though my wife tells me I am more adaptable than I realize, she tells me that I have the ability to be very engaging if I decide I want to be and that most of my behavior and social interaction is driven by my mood that particular day. When it comes to social media, I am all but non-existent at this point. I maintain a Facebook page to stay in touch with family and friends but I don't post. I don't do instagram, twitter or snapchat either. I still much prefer face-to-face interaction to social media and am embarrassed for society by what I see social media becoming. Watching "friends" argue over nothing on Facebook or people taking hundreds of pictures of nothing important, including themselves is not a sign of progress.
     
  14. Kampf Trinker

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    I don't use much of anything these days. This is actually the only place I post online with any frequency. In college I used facebook all the time. I use it sparingly now, and only to keep in touch with long distance friends, mainly those in Europe and Asia. I've never used twitter, and as such don't know much about it, but I really don't even see what the purpose would be in you aren't an artist/entertainer/etc that has a following.

    As far as being different in real life; don't know, don't care. I'd imagine I'm much the same as I've never made any kind of effort to project a certain persona or whatever online, and have no idea why I would, or what I would have to gain from doing that. The only difference I can think of is the type of conversations I'm more likely to have.

    I get this going back to if you're some kind of entertainer catering to a large audience so playing up a persona matters, but for your average person I don't really see the purpose behind this. I'm not important enough to have a "brand".
     
  15. Revengeofthenerds

    Revengeofthenerds
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    Quoted so you can get back to me. That's precisely the position I'm in (which may or may not go beyond the scope of this thread, but hey, entertainment!).

    For me, with work and everything, it's the only way I can keep sane. And I've been doing it for so many years, it's only natural on here too. Like "hey, this is what y'all want for the laughs, have at it!" ... I've gotta keep work and personal and social separate, because so many different things are required of me in different place it only makes sense to compartmentalize.

    Honestly after the @Nettdata fiasco with his work I don't feel safe divulging too many details, but suffice to say I have to keep them separate. Chances are high you've seen or read about my work on the news. But that doesn't make for entertainment here. Thus, the split personality conundrum.

    I'm honestly curious as to your opinion.
     
  16. Nettdata

    Nettdata
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    Mr. Toast

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  17. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
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    Actually you have me kind of confused. If your schtick or whatever it is is public to the point most people have seen and read about it in the news, isn't that 1000x the exposure of talking about it on here, yet you're afraid to discuss it here because work might find out about it? Or is this place your schtick and your regular work is in the news, or did I completely misread that?
     
  18. toytoy88

    toytoy88
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    Alone in the dark, drooling on himself

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    I get what RoTN is talking about. Our private/Professional lives are not tied to our online persona.

    Y'all have been witness to years of my private hi-jinks, which are not something I'd wish for my employer/prospective employer to know about. I tend to go off the rails when left to my own devices and it makes for entertaining stories, however, it has absolutely zero to do with how I conduct myself in a business setting.

    It doesn't mean my personality is any different, it simply means that I'm able to differentiate between what is funny (At least to me) and what is expected of me as a productive member of society. Right now I have to behave as a civil human being, so I do. Give me the chance, and I'll be out blowing shit up and causing mayhem because why not?

    My personality never changes, my behavior might.

    As far as if there is a difference in my online/real life persona....not really. When was the last time I had a new story about injuring myself or doing something insanely stupid? The crazy is still there, it's just napping.