Introducing…
Buh-bye, Hamster-Bunny
I bit the bullet yesterday and uploaded a photo of my face to my Gravatar, Google and Twitter accounts. It wasn’t easy.
I’ve hated having my picture taken since my late teens or early 20s, which is exactly when I started becoming self-conscious about my appearance, of course. There are very few photos of me since the age of 25 – probably less than a dozen, honestly, and I’m well into my 40s now.
Seeing my own face is tough; having other people look at it, too, is not the best feeling in the world. So why go there?
Quite simply, it’s the right thing to do.
Yes, there are some bloggers and folks with a respectable social media presence who’ve gotten away without it so far – Stefan Svartling comes immediately to mind – but they are the exception that make the rule. If I stick with my example, Svartling has been so active for so long that we’ve come to identify him with his ‘electric ghost’ avatar, and it might be a shock to suddenly find a photograph in its place.
I tried to accomplish something similar with my stuffed critter avatar. I used it everywhere, trying to make it my identity. I succeeded to some extent but I have to admit it didn’t contribute in a serious way to my image.
The avatar that hit too close to home
A cute image for sure – better than my original avatar, from an employer perspective – but ultimately it was like wearing jeans and sneakers to a job interview. And that’s never a good idea.
And that’s what it comes down to: if you’re adding your voice to the chaos within social media, it helps to consider yourself an employment candidate.
Clearly I resisted thinking of my avatar this way, and maybe you have, too. I signed up for Twitter because I wanted to enjoy myself, not because I wanted to have a job on the Internet. The moment my reputation in the world began to matter to me, however, it was time to take even my avatar seriously. That moment may not have come with my first tweet or my first experimental entry on a blog I no longer maintain, but it did come.
And so, in the spirit of representing my true self, I present the face that goes with these thoughts.
