Baym's Chapter 4

In online communities such as chatrooms or web forums, Baym is correct in that people tend to take on identities such as the “lurker,” “answer people,” and “discussion people.” On online community sites, people are often on there because they share a common interest. Baym gives several examples of this - groups for Buffy fans, groups for people with a particular health issue, etc. Modern social networks, however, are “egocentric and no two will be identical” (100). On a social network website, a person is the center of communication; there is no particular interest that brings people onto social media networks other than networking. Baym maintains that “identities are harder to develop” on social network sites, something that I disagree with (102).

Because there are so many social networks available online, it is uncommon for social network users to only use one platform. Social network users tend to be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, or any combination of these platforms. On each platform, people show off different aspects of themselves depending which site they are using. The norms of each social network constitute what aspect of our identity we show off on each particular site. A person may use Instagram to show off art but use Facebook to stay in touch with family, only posting about general life updates. However, these supposedly separate identities eventually all come together because we live in an age of convergence; it is possible to share an Instagram post to Facebook or Twitter. After Twitter became popular, Facebook introduced a hashtag feature. Suddenly, the separate identities of each social network come together to create a single, cohesive individual. Especially because social networks go through periods of popularity, social media users join and follow a similar set of people that they do on other social networks and are able to really “follow” this set, creating a sense of community.