One, None and One Hundred Thousand Profiles 6plus2minus4plus3plusminus2Re-imagining the Pirandellian Identity Dilemma in the Era of Online Social Networks

Note: This is a preprint. An abridged version of this paper will be presented/performed under the title “Identity dilemmas on Facebook” at the Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society “A Decade in Internet Time” to be held Wednesday 21 Saturday 24 September 2011 at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK. Uno, Nessuno, Centomila (“One, No One and One Hundred Thousand”) is a classic novel by Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello. Published in 1925, it recounts the tragedy of Vitangelo Moscarda, a man who struggles to reclaim a coherent and unitary identity for himself in the face of an inherently social and multi-faceted world. What would Moscarda identity tragedy look like today? In this article we transplant Moscarda’s identity play from its offline setting to the contemporary arena of social media and online social networks. With reference to established theories on identity construction, performance, and self-presentation, we re-imagine how Moscarda would go about defending the integrity of his selfhood in the face of the discountenancing influences of the online world. You have one identity. [...] The days of you having a different image for your co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly. [...] Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.