Sophomore Sarah Cozad holds up her phone displaying her Twitter feed. Cozad was recently a target of a fake twitter account which has changed her views on how she perceives social media. (by Katherine Mediavilla)
Sophomore Sarah Cozad holds up her phone displaying her Twitter feed. Cozad was recently a target of a fake twitter account which has changed her views on how she perceives social media.

by Katherine Mediavilla

Sharing with strangers

Teens today use a variety of online platforms to express different sides of their personalities.

February 17, 2015

story by Gloria Cowdin, photos by Katherine Mediavilla, alternative coverage by Linden O’Brien-Williams

 

Dark and brooding, cheery and positive, opinionated, mellow, male, female, young or old. Online, people can assume any role. Many teens express themselves through a multitude of social media platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr.

Senior Abbey Curran is a frequent Tumblr user with nearly 1,000 followers who are almost all strangers. It is not unusual for Curran to contact a new blogger whose posts she finds interesting. After discovering a new blog early last year, Curran noticed that the blogger’s profile picture seemed familiar, so she messaged the girl and told her so. They exchanged messages and then that was that. Until they ran into each other at school.

“All of a sudden I came to the realization when I was walking in the hall and saw [senior Cecelia Zanone’s] face. I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s you!’” Curran said. “It was so weird.”

This scenario was possible because of the anonymity Tumblr provides. People who might never interact offline make connections online because of the pseudo-privacy of social media. The flipside of Tumblr, where Curran says there is “more freedom” to express oneself, is Twitter, where many users create profiles to display how they want to be seen by peers.

Today, 95 percent of teens use the Internet and 92 percent post their real name on whichever profile they use most often,  according to data collected by Evan Wexler for PBS FRONTLINE. Additionally, “81 percent of online teens use some kind of social media,” according to the Pew Research Center.

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Twitter is a news feed of sorts, constantly updated with “Tweets” or “retweets” of 140 characters or less that may contain writing, photos or videos. Similarly, Tumblr is a blogging platform for personal or business use, where users can post or repost any length of texts, videos, audio recordings or photo albums.

The most significant differences between Twitter and Tumblr are the roles of followers and the social stigmas surrounding the content of posts. On the Twitter app, users can see the number of followers another user has. This feature is not available on Tumblr, making it difficult for blog users to rank the popularity of other blogs.

It is commonplace on Tumblr for users to share opinions or post personal text posts, which are then reblogged or “liked” by any number of anonymous Tumblr users.

According to sophomore Haille Fritz, who has both Twitter and Tumblr accounts, it is the anonymity of Tumblr that instills confidence in its users.

“Tumblr is way more personal [than Twitter],” Fritz said. “[I post] things I like–pictures and everything–and I will voice my opinion if I’m against something.”

Curran also cited times she has defended posts that received negative comments or replied in a “sassy” way to negative posts. Curran also agreed that the anonymity of Tumblr is the reason behind this outspokenness.

“I guess the people I do know that follow me I don’t know that well,” Curran said. “It’s basically over 900 people I don’t know. I won’t see people [who follow me] at school the next day.”

Conversely, Twitter users expect other Twitter users to primarily post funny quips about their day or quick opinions on current news, according to Curran.

“I think you need to be funny or dramatically entertaining [on Twitter],” Curran said. “[A Twitter post] needs to have a funnier meaning. The people I follow have posts that are all funny, so it makes me want to post funny things.

Screen Shot 2015-02-17 at 7.44.33 AMAccording to Fritz, opinionated posts tend to receive backlash.

“I will almost never post my opinion on Twitter in case I start a fight,” Fritz said.

Although it is common for individuals to identify themselves on Twitter, there are also many anonymous accounts. These accounts are usually large-scale and pertain to a certain topic or celebrity. Because most individuals can be searched by name on Twitter, a feature unavailable on Tumblr, anonymous accounts can easily target a community or person.

Sophomore Sarah Cozad experienced the negative end of online anonymity over Christmas break. An anonymous user created an account, “@sarahzaddyfat,” as a parody of Cozad’s Twitter account, “@sarahzaddy.” The account followed many of Cozad’s followers and posted mean-spirited Tweets about Cozad and her friends.

“At first, the account really had a toll on me personally,” Cozad said.

However, people across Twitter immediately rallied behind Cozad and reported the account to Twitter, according to Cozad.

“I got texts from so many people I don’t even know and people were Tweeting about it and replying to the [the account] and reporting it,” Cozad said. “People I had never even talked to or ever met.”

Although Curran’s and Cozad’s experiences were highly different, both relied on the power of online anonymity. According to Cozad, it is important to remember that an entire world exists beyond the anonymity found online.

“Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet, like stuff that people say about you,” Cozad said. “It’s one against so many other people that what [anonymous users] say doesn’t really matter that much”.

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