Mirrors and Veils

I came across a quote this week, from Viviane Serfaty, an Associate Professor at Université Paris-Est Marne la Vallée (France), who has done a great deal of research into digital culture. In her estimation, blogs are “simultaneously mirrors and veils.” Bloggers use the platform they have generated for themselves to both create a reflection that allows other to “see” them, but also veils those aspects that they’d rather no one knew about. In other words, bloggers pick and choose what they want others to know; they create an image of themselves with the words on the page. To a large extent, whether you are a blogger or not, you do this every day.

I had lunch yesterday with two friends (Hi, Amy and Kylie!), and although we hadn’t been together in the same place for over a month, I didn’t spend the time filling them in on every little thing that happened since we’d seen each other last. And, in spite of the fact that Kylie had just come back from a four-week study abroad trip to Vietnam—neither did she. We judiciously chose:

• What we had time to talk about in brief one-hour lunch (between bites of French onion soup)
• What we felt was important about the last four weeks

and, whether we realized it or not…

•      What fit in with the identity we each attempt to cultivate in relation to the others.

If all that sounds calculating, I suppose on some level it is. Ask yourself, why are there things one person knows about us that others do not? Sometimes people might know something just because they happened to have been there when it happened (I have  friends who lived across the street from me when I was a child who know more about my childhood than anyone else, except maybe my sister), but more often than not, people know only what we tell them.

My dear husband, when he heard about this blog I've begun, decided that he wanted to create one, too. So we spent a few minutes getting him set up and ready to roll, before I left him alone to consider a name and create his first post. About an hour later, he sent me this link: http://rowlinalong.blogspot.com/ Curious to see what on earth he'd come up with, I followed the link, and discovered that he had created not only a fictional persona, but an entire storyline--supported by actual, unretouched photographs--of a scenario that never really happened (although the bit about the "crab attack" was more or less true, but happened to our grandson). Now, if you know him at all, you are not surprised by this (the biggest surprise to me was that he wanted to start his own blog!).  His blog is one example of those "veils and mirrors": He has created an unabashedly fictionalized version of himself--on purpose. Many other bloggers--believe it or not--do the same.

But every blogger--or writer--does it. Some do it in the name of fiction, and others do it unwittingly. But all of us do it every time we sit down to write, simply through the choices we make. I did it in the writing of this blogpost!

So, as you read your favorite blogs this week, think about those mirrors and veils, and ask yourself which you are seeing—and if there is any way to tell the difference.

I know I will be!