Introducing yourself and the stories you might tell

Who are you, really? And who are you within this space?

For this prompt, we want you to begin thinking about the version of self that you’re bringing into the platform you’ve chosen. What do you find yourself wanting to focus on during your time here? And how might you present that version of self through your account?

Here’s what you should seek to accomplish with this prompt:

• Conceptualize the you that you’re exploring these next few weeks. Many people might think that posting on social media may involve needing to post directly about yourself. (And you certainly can!) But, you can also choose to be selective about what you share and how much of yourself you choose to share. Perhaps you can take a look around and see what others are doing before deciding what you want to do for yourself. Will you engage as a fully authentic recreation of yourself, or will you adopt an account-specific persona, or will you do something else entirely?


• Create a post (or equivalent piece of content) that helps others understand who you are. This can be a post about you, if you are willing, or what your account is about, or what kinds of stories, interests, questions, or communities shape your presence in this space. This could take the form of a direct introduction, or a post about something you care about/are interested in, or even it could be a response to content that already feels connected to the identity of your account. The goal is to give people a reason to recognize your voice and understand what kind of presence you are creating.


• As you are creating something to post, here’s some questions to consider (which could also help you with the reflection writing):
  • What do I want people to know about me or my account here?
  • What kinds of stories am I trying to tell?
  • What do I want this account to contribute to the platform?

Letting others move you into action

This prompt encourages you to take inspiration from others and let it influence your experience. What are other people doing that tends to catch your attention? Is it the topic of the content that intrigues you, or is it something more abstract, like the style or methodology behind their creation?

Think of it like walking into a store, seeing something styled on a mannequin, and trying it on because it feels interesting, unfamiliar, or worth exploring. If you dislike the style, you can always change it up, but perhaps it’s still worth trying it on for size first.

Here’s what we’re asking you to do for this prompt:

• Take the time to observe others. Choose another user, or several users, whose content catches your attention. Study what they are doing. If it’s a thread, a conversation, a specific hashtag, or an interest group, that works too. What tone, format, topic, visual style, or rhythm draws you in?


• Create something of your own that is influenced by the characteristics you saw in other content. You might emulate their style, respond to their post, remix an idea, or use their content as a starting point for your own reflection. If you disagree with existing content, feel free to create something that contrasts with what can be drawn from the chosen content.
  
  As you create, notice the difference between content creation and content curation. Are you posting about yourself, or are you posting through the interests, aesthetics, and communities you choose to engage with? What does your curation reveal about you?


• Reflect on what influenced you and how you chose to move with it. Your choices and actions should revolve around not only what you created, but how content from other users shaped your own thinking, style, or story. Be sure to note this in your reflection, and maybe even include it as part of the content you post.

Exploring how different modalities shape self-expression and storytelling

Even within a single platform, there might be multiple ways to post and express yourself. Take Instagram, for example — the primary media formats shared are photos and videos, but even those allow for text, whether as a caption, a text-based image post, or comments underneath a post. There are also Reels (intentional short-form video), Stories (temporary in nature), and reposts of others’ content to your own profile. And this is just one example — digging similarly into other platforms and paying close attention can reveal similar diversities.

Each format asks for something different from you. For this prompt, we want you to think about how the design of a platform and the modalities it offers can mediate self-expression, connection, and exploration.

Here’s what you can do to explore the ideas in this prompt:

• Identify and inspect the different modalities offered within a platform. Think about the different ways a platform allows you to post, such as videos, photos, text, Stories, Reels, comments, captions, or reposts. Again, each format asks something different of you, and we want you to really inspect that further. A caption may invite reflection. A Reel may encourage performance. A Story may feel more casual or temporary. A photo may communicate through mood or visual identity. What are the things that you are noticing, and what are your own opinions on how modality influences expression?


• Share content in a format that you do not usually use, or try out multiple formats/modalities and see what you notice. Try using more than one format on the same platform, or compare how people, including you, express themselves across different formats. You can even try to draw observations about how people express themselves across different platforms — for example, do people tend to craft a certain persona on TikTok vs. on Threads? How, and to what degree, do you think users are affected by the modalities a platform offers?


• Reflect on how the storytelling format changed what you felt able to say, what you chose to reveal, and how you imagined others would react to it. You can also reflect on how different platforms shape how people present themselves.

How might interactions with others shape identity formation and understanding?

Your identity in this space can be viewed as a combination of what you create and your interactions and connections with others. Your experience is shaped by who you follow, who follows you, what you choose to “like” and comment on, and what you ignore/choose not to engage with. Your interactions can say as much about you as what you choose to post as part of your profile.

For this prompt, we want you to think closely about how you engage with other users and their content. Here’s some steps that you can take to accomplish this:

• Consider how you behave when you are consuming content from others. When you see a piece of content, what goes through your head? What’s your thought process like when you’re determining whether you like something or not? How do you behave when you see something you agree with, admire, dislike, or feel unsure about? Do you comment, like, repost, stay silent, report, or move on?


• Consider whether your interactions (or potential interactions) are influenced by factors external to your own internal thoughts. Do you ever manage your online behavior because of how friends, family, employers, classmates, or strangers might read it? How do you imagine your interactions being interpreted by others? How does this mediate certain interactions you might execute? Is this something you find yourself wanting to adjust now that you’re aware of it?
  
  Also think about disclaimers, such as “views are my own.” What do these statements protect, separate, or clarify? What parts of your identity do you feel responsible for presenting, and what parts do you feel others might attach to you without your consent? And do you feel the need to separate and negotiate your multiple identities? If so, how do you do that?


• Reflect on the relationship between interactions and how they shape online identity. This can be shared as part of your reflection or even as part of the content you create, and can be focused on you, what you’ve observed in others, or perhaps some mix of both.

Putting your creation process under a microscope

For this prompt, we want you to dive in on the intricacies of your actual content creation process. Hopefully by this point, you’ve been able to post a handful of things on your platform of choice and are familiar with what your content creation process is like. Now, we want you to put that process under the microscope — to dissect it, inspect it, and question each individual component. What are the different factors that influence your decisions, and what levels are they operating on?

Here’s what you can do to explore the ideas in this prompt:

• Observe your own creation process. Pay close attention to what’s actually happening inside of your head. How do you decide what you want to post and how you go about it? What are the specific thoughts/considerations that are going through your head as you sit down to create something?


• Trace those decisions back to their source, or make connections between them. Think about the microdecisions you’re making. Are you taking inspiration from and remixing something that you saw from someone else? Or were these ideas and preferences that already existed within yourself? What decisions are you making that serve aspects of yourself? Are you making specific aesthetic decisions (i.e. framing, coloring, text placement), and where might they be coming from? Or are you tailoring your tone to suit a specific audience? Are there things you’re trying to “maximize”, or are you placing your focus elsewhere?


• Reflect on your creation process. This is where we’re asking you to get meta about your own thought process. This can also be turned into content itself, if you so choose — many people love to post a “behind the scenes” peek into their work, and you could do the same as you write up your reflection.

Mapping out your place in this space, and perhaps carving out a new direction

After spending a fair amount of time on the platform of your choice, this prompt asks you to consider the relationship between yourself (or the version of yourself that you’re engaging as) and the platform itself and the space you’ve created within it. How do you feel about what you’ve staked out for yourself?

This can be considered in relation to both the content that you’ve created and also the content that you’re consuming, or the content that the platform naturally pushes your way based on choices you’ve made in the past. Do you find yourself satisfied with the niche you’ve carved out? Or are there things that you might want to change? What would your ideal experience look like, and how far away do you find yourself from it? How might a changed experience reveal different parts of yourself?

Specifically, here’s some things that you can ponder over for this prompt:

• Think about your current experience, concretely. What does your experience on the platform look like now? What does your feed look like as soon as you log in? How do you feel about what you’re seeing? How much do you feel responsible for, and how much do you feel like it was decided for you (i.e. by algorithms, by interaction patterns, etc.). Is there a mismatch between the experience you’re having and the experience that you want to have?


• Try to alter your experience in some way. Some platforms give you explicit ways to “adjust” what you’re seeing — for example, Threads has “Dear Algo”, TikTok allows you to refresh your For You Page, etc. Other platforms might require a different approach — you might have to search and engage with different or new content. You might also take on posting a new style or type of content. Pick the options that seem right to you and go forth with them.


• Reflect on what this reveals about your relationship to the space. Were you able to accomplish the changes you wanted? If successful, did you find yourself liking the adjustments you implemented? Do you have any thoughts on how much of your experience on the platform was from your own agency vs. how much the platform mediates the experience?

Thinking about the old you, the present you, and all of the you’s in between

At the end of this content creation experience, we invite you to look back on your journey and think about the version of self you brought forth into this exercise in comparison to the version of self that you’ve created or refined through this process.

To accomplish this, here’s some things to aim for:

• Try to define the version of self you had at the beginning of this experience and the version you find yourself with now. If you completed Prompt 0 and Prompt 1, it might be worth looking back on your past reflections. What did you bring going in? What were your expectations? Where do you stand as of now? Were you able to gain a better understanding of yourself, or did this experience reveal new things that you have yet to explore? What color did the experience add to your understanding of yourself and self-expression?


• Identify the specific components of the experience that were instrumental to a shift, if any. Was there a particular prompt, post, interaction, etc. that moved you? Were there parts of the platform itself that contributed to your self-expression? Or, conversely, were there aspects that hindered the version of self that you wanted to explore?


• Reflect on the overall experience and where you might go from here. Like many things in life, there’s usually not a tidy conclusion, and we’re not asking for you to have one now. Rather, we want you to consider if there’s anything that you want to carry forward from this, or anything you want to leave behind.