![]() What is shared becomes one’s onstage personality. Everything that goes unseen-every dormant Away Message, unflattering selfie, and drafted tweet-makes up that backstage personality. Stored Away Messages, then, offered a backstage purpose, similar to how teenagers today might carefully choose which images to share on Instagram or Snapchat. She explained: “If you imagine life as a theater, we have backstage versions of ourselves, we have onstage versions of ourselves-each one is shaped by who is watching.” “It’s a set of ‘who we are’ being based on how we imagine the audience we’re in front of.” “He theorized that people don’t have just one, single, static identity, but rather a set of tensions,” Alper said. To understand AIM’s import in identity formation, though, first consider sociologist Erving Goffman’s theory of identity. Their flexibility (being able to change them on a whim) as well as their economy (being able to save a few oft-used messages for recall at a moment’s notice) made them especially apt at breaking down the inside/outside way many characterize their identities. ![]() “With AIM Away Messages, you had a semi-permanent place to represent yourself online.”Īway Messages-more often than not consisting of moody song lyrics for angsty teens-were a foray into a new way of thinking about one’s identity, Alper said. ![]() “There was really this sense of something pervasive about you on the computer, even if you weren’t there,” she said. Those Away Messages, something of a precursor to tweets and Facebook statuses, were among the first hints of the ubiquitous communication and online profiles we have now, Alper said. To consider their products “life-changing” is certainly ambitious, but at least in the case of AIM, perhaps not too far off. ![]()
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