It is 7:30 am. I wake up, make my way downstairs and lean sleepily against the counter as I wait for my coffee. Then, sitting down to my laptop, I open it. Sweetly, accommodatingly, it connects to the web; I open up Twitter and say my good mornings.
I am become Remittance Girl.
Of course, I was Remittance Girl while sleeping, and late last night, as I did the crossword puzzle tucked up in bed. This persona is not a mask, or a costume I put on to be with you. This persona is a part of me, indivisible from me. It’s not a discretely evolved element of me. When I am Remittance Girl, all of me is there, but there are aspects of my whole I show and some I don’t.
Remittance Girl has been inside me for many, many years, growing and evolving as I spent time in the world. But it was only in 2001 that I gave her a name, and thought about the ways in which her voice differed from mine.
In a way, this post constitutes the first of a series of writings on my PhD. I’m writing it because in order to investigate this world I am involved it – in order to be able to fully describe and analyze this reader-text-writer world, I need first to identify myself as part of the experience – both as the writer, and the investigator.
There are a thousand reasons why we create personas. We don’t just do it online. We show different aspects of ourselves according to the different physical and cultural environments we are in. It isn’t a matter of being genuine or fake, it’s a matter of experiencing the world.
You cannot see the sun unless you orient your eyes in its direction, open them and prepare yourself to squint.
The idea of persona runs contrary to the fundamentally held beliefs of most Americans that you should be yourself in everything. That you should state your basic values, express them publicly and live by them.
However, this often jars with our very natures. Because, ultimately, we are adaptive creatures. This is what has put us so far up the evolutionary ladder. So, it is not unreasonable to view the creation of persona as environmental adaption to a niche. When I want a bank loan, I put on the clothes the bank manager is going to most feel comfortable with before I go to see him.
I’m not pretending to be someone worthy of a loan. I’m presenting myself to the loan officer in a format he can read. Does that make me a hypocrite or just a clever tool-user?
Let us leave the pragmatic paradigm of Darwinism for a moment. Certainly, I cannot argue that I need to be Remittance Girl here, with you, for the sake of my genetic survival or perpetuation.
Perhaps a better metaphor for the adoption of online personas is the multi-aspected Hindu notion of God. People often think of Hinduism as pantheistic – a religion with many gods. But actually, Hinduism is omnitheistic. There is a totality and singularity of godliness, which presents itself to different humans in different forms, because that is what we need. Any reasonably educated devotee of Ganesha knows that embodied within the aspect she worships, are all the other deities in the Hindu pantheon; she simply finds this aspect to be the one she can most easily connect with.
I’m not implying I’m a goddess. I’m suggesting that we are all, in one way or another, capable of taking on different aspects to feel comfortable in our environment and also to present ourselves to others in a way that they will find easiest to connect with.
I am Remittance Girl here because she is a writer. And she can say she is a writer. She can do the things that writers do. There are other aspects of me that find this problematic. My father was also a writer and, at a very young age, he told me I wasn’t a good one. For better or worse, this has followed me throughout my life like a dark cloud of self-doubt. And so, to step out from under that low-ceilinged restriction, I become Remittance Girl.
For you, I am what you need me to be: a writer, a storyteller, a blogger, a sex goddess, a vixen, a slut, an academic, a sharp tongued bitch, a deceiver, a manipulatrix, a benevolent mother-figure, a twisted hermit celibate. It all depends on what you require, and whether you are positively or negatively disposed towards me.
Because this is the thing with personas – they are created by the sender and interpreted by the receiver. I will never be to you what I want. I will be what you need me to be. Just like a story, no matter what meaning I hope it conveys, you will bring your own lived experience to your understanding of who I am. And, of course, vice versa.
That doesn’t make us artificial to each other. It doesn’t invalidate or diminish our relationship. Not in the least. We place ourselves in the realm of each other’s consciousness just as we are allowed to reside there. We can only affect each other with mutual permission.
Thank you for letting me in.
Oh RG. I enjoy you so damn much.
Spot on. We’re all chameleons to some extent – here and in our every day exchanges. Thanks RG.
Fascinating piece, RG. A couple of thoughts. First, I’ve noticed that personas are real (or perhaps significant) to the extent that they “stick” to the wearer. What I mean is that there’s a difference between the bank loan persona and the RG persona. The former you could ditch in a heartbeat; the latter, you’d suffer spiritual death without. I was struck by the idea of the persona as a tool, which made me wonder about the non-utilitiarian ones. Dressing to be read — if you dress incorrectly and are not seen, it’s not that you don’t experience the world, it’s that you don’t experience it in relation — your experience is not “successful” in the sense of fufilling whatever it was you were getting up that morning to do that involved other people, whether to score a loan or a lover. So (I’m rambling along now, sorry) I’m supposing that there is a persona-less state — one’s naked self, the self that one experiences when alone, or, say, with whatever one’s god happens to be. The idea behind most spiritual/religious traditions is normally to transcend the self — one doesn’t bring (consciously) a persona into the prayer or meditation because there’s no one to show it to, there’s no thing that can’t read you bare. So — these more “real” personas (in contrast with the utilitarian ones), because they are closer to our centers, stickier & more meaningful — well, back to the persona as tool, what are they for? From any sort of Darwinian evolutionary perspective, they are luxuries. And yet, they are indispensible for us, aren’t they? I think that they serve as prisms for some spiritual light of some kind — as a way of focusing the receipt of that light, as a way of picking up the wavelengths of that light in a way that we can understand more easily than getting the full spectrum all at once, and in a way that ultimately connects us with others who understand those same (or perhaps complementary) wavelengths. (Oh crap, I’ve rambled here, and I notice that I’ve strayed into the weeds and I’ve gotten myself all wrapped in my own thread a bit. But oh well).
Oh, and one last thing — I’m pretty sure that there’s been a consensus forming that you are, in fact, a goddess… 🙂
hahaha. Obviously you must need a goddess in your life.
Everyone needs a goddess in their life, and you are she, RG. 🙂
Oh, well, at least, as deities go, I’m conveniently flawed and therefore forgiving.
David… may I help you from the weeds with RG’s words? (extends a hand)
“I will never be to you what I want. I will be what you need me to be.”
i wear / a million masks / one for each of you / now i have forgotten / what i really look like
Perhaps we are under the misapprehension that our image of self should always accord with the way other people see us, when in fact that isn’t and cannot – by virtue of subjectivity – be the case.
I realize my poem is the opposite of what you are saying until
“I will never be to you what I want. I will be what you need me to be.”
We may not create the mask (or even realize how we are seen) but as you say, each individual will see us through their own experiences. We cannot (or at least in my opinion, should not) try to “become ourselves” as others see us, but rather be true to ourselves despite how others perceive us. I love listening to your views. I always learn something (or many things.)
Yes 🙂
I really love this. The title caught my eye (nice reference there by the way) and as I read I felt like you were saying something I think a lot, but never realise I am thinking it. I love how multifaceted we as humans are, and I often feel I would be a very dull person if I were the same person all the time. I remember, as a child, misunderstanding that the term “two-faced” (which was thrown around a lot by my peers) was supposed to be a bad thing, and just thinking that it must take incredible skill and self-knowledge to have not one, but two faces.
You are like my mentor!
Your mentor? Oh, god help you! You’re on the slippery slope down to the cesspit. Hehe.
Haha, maybe maybe… I reckon I can handle the cesspit!
I’ve always thought of personas as facets. It’s really not possible to look at a gem and see them all at once. One can focus on a single facet, or a few, and sometimes even turn the diamond to look at others, if the jeweler will let you pick it up. But facets are as true representations of the object as any other measure. It’s just what’s presented directly to us.
As a faceted gem shines more brilliantly in different light,
we too, shimmer according to those around us.
Sometimes, we are unaware… sometimes, it is purposeful.
But, how exhausting it must be to those who think that all sides need to show all the time .. or, even that they must show at all.
RG your many face are a joy to discover. Peeling each back to find the next level. It is an interesting and wondrous journey. I enjoy taking this ride. So till the next turn in the road or intersection I will be a faithful passenger.
RG,
Fascinating, what I have deemed contradictory in my own ‘head-space’ you have celebrated. Perhaps the actual contradiction is really my inability to lower my defenses regarding the inner conflict. We have all been raised with sets of do’s, and don’ts that shape our reality. Always wanting to be the “good girl” I have allowed much of my identity to stem from that fear….of being seen as “good.” What the fuck is ‘good’ anyway…. Relative thinking in every way. I too am rambling. I guess you force us readers to delve in to ourselves in a very non-traditional way, and therefore we/I meet your “persona” with a genuine desire to ‘see’ who I really am are under all of the exterior facade that makes up the contradiction of Meme.
This blog lends itself quite well to a myriad of psychological explorations, simmered with a sexy no excuses allowed mining of what it is that makes us who we are.
Kudos as always.
Mems~
I am an academic woman, a college professor in fact, raised in the conservative Christian church. I’ve loved your writing for over a year now, but have never commented on a story. Both of the spheres I inhabit–the academic and the spiritual–tend to frown on my self-labeling as a bisexual sub. One with amused tolerance, the other with horrified disgust. Your site is one of the places I come to be wholly myself, as far as one can anyway. I find, here, that my academic mind is truly fed, and that my intense desire to revel in sexuality not under my own control is also sated. I have never felt judged here for being a Christian who wonders where the hell God is, nor for being the kind of person for whom sex is, well, everything.
Thank you for being what I need. I hope that in some small way, I, as your gaze, give you something you need.
I see the various “personas” I have as fragments of myself. They are all part of me who make up the whole of me. I am never completely whole wherever I may be except inside my head…which is a mess of a place to be. I guess too many fragments…
RG,
Life would be rather dull if we only ate one food, drank water, & could only see shades in of gray…
Thank you
-TFP
Hi RG,
Perhaps the biggest difference in our internet personae is that we can (with a little effort) free ourselves from the everyday person we are normally seen to be.
All those things that determine our value with strangers are suppressed: how we look, how we dress, how we speak. Only (the often carefully edited) text remains.
We are what we say.
Even when what we say is not who we are.
Yet even as I write this, I am aware that text is no longer enough. Your site is well designed. I know you are literate in design and technology before I read a word of text.
Remittance Girl is a writer.
What would you write that Remittance Girl would not? Who would you been as you wrote it? Who would you be after others read it?
What could Remittance Girl write that would cause you to disown her?
Is Remittance Girl bound by all she has already written? Does she, overtime, become some coral reef of past writings that anchor her to one place in everything she has yet to write?
I am Mike Kimera.
And I am not.
Yet sometimes, in hotels, at car rental desks, I almost sign his name.
Where would he take me if I let him drive?
I hope you will continue to share your explorations of what it means to be in this world that we create but which also creates us.
I just have a question for you. Do you see your use of the word “personas” as somehow different from that of “identity?” Or, probably more precisely, the postmodern/poststructuralist plural thereof? I was trying to suss out the difference in your description, but it almost seems geographical, these shifting, fluid and multiple identities that we each take on, depending on our spatial, cultural and other contexts I guess…
I guess I think of persona as an intentional self-generated thing, at least initially. Whereas identity is something you are, to a certain extent born with and over which you often have little control.
Dear RG: You truly do love your craft and those that read you are better for having done so. I tried to follow you on Twitter, but it said I was blocked. I was disappointed, to say the least. Yet since we’ve never met, nor crossed paths in any way, it’s just one of those things that is out of my control.
All manner of persona online – and in person for that matter – has elements of role-play. I think in some ways the terms are almost interchangeable. But in the interactive narration of online communities the lines get more blurred. In realms like erotica especially, the term role-play is a familiar concept. In a role-play fantasy we get to be something slightly different, or something wholly other. What are these but rather specialized personas? Some people – especially those who are familiar with role-play from other experiences (gaming, acting, and sex come to mind) adopt the the attitude, and even the characters in their online personas. In role-play you’re telling a tale – or co-creating one. I think there’s a lot of that in modern social media. The construction of a collective tale.
Monocle,
Don’t you think that perhaps some of this so called “role play” is in reality
Just fantasy awry? I have such difficulty with it. Being such a realist, I guess I have a hard time finding the thread that is real…or at least a glimmer of who it is the person/personality is? Role playing is great in a relationship that is substantiated by honesty, relational sex play and such are fantastic ways to keep the magic/heat. But again only when the relationship is steadfast in a real connection firstly. I must sound quite boring…but there it is.
XO
Mems,
I’m not sure what you mean by fantasy ‘awry’. It’s fantasy out and out. Folks RP fantasy heroes and heroines in games designed for it and take their characters’ personas into the various game forums and social interactions. People doing sexual roleplay with complete strangers take on personas and characters that can be made up of whole cloth or only thinly veiled reflections of themselves. The point of it is to feel free to be what you want in these interactions without being fettered by your limitations, your communities morals, your gender, age, etc..
And you’re right – you may indeed have a hard time discerning the real person at the core of the persona being presented. Sometimes that is the point.
You are all things and everything to me 🙂 And I mean that in a non-creepy, non-stalkery way…
You realize that might make a person very nervous? Please make sure you fill in my gaps. Thank you.
RG,
A brilliant take on the human need to role-play. Of course that has always been part of the human condition since before the Greeks started staging theater. What I find fascinating is the boundaries on the edge of the persona. When we put on a mask, there is a definition of boundaries that is set as well. The actor is only in the role on stage. I am a raging slut only online. Or I am a woman online, but a man in real life (to tie back to your other essays).
But sometimes we flex the rules a bit. The boundaries are relaxed with some and not with others. Or the persona may change completely as a result of the need to change the dynamic of the relationship. In the parlance you use, the author needs or wants to change the bond with the reader. Sometimes this is through the text, sometimes external to it, such as responding to fan mail.
I have no poinant insight, just something that fascinates me.
I wonder if you consider “persona disconnect” at all in your musings — the case where the expectation I have of you can be so me-centric that I completely miss your persona. Two examples from my experience — in high school, I was giving an oral explanation of a Sylvia Plath poem which contains the line “a pivot of heels and knees,” and based on what I wanted to see in that line, I twisted the entire poem and completely missed any horse in it — I just saw sex, which at that age was pretty much what I saw everywhere. This is not what Plath was writing about. So, have I experienced this poem by bringing to it a meaning that was never intended? Second example — I worked for a time in a produce market and for Halloween dressed up as a Martian — green everything, including face. The context never occurred to me and so everyone thought I was either the Little Green Sprout or the Jolly Green Giant. I just went with it but that year I was feeling weird so Martian was who I wanted to be. So that wholesale missing of a persona based on misaligned expectations is sort of fascinating to me. It’s one thing to catch one aspect of a persona and miss the rest, but quite another to believe you see something that’s not there at all.
That’s a very good point. I do think there are cultural encyclopedias that are so distinct from each other that there is definitely disconnect. But, I’d still say that there is a place for creative phenomena in those disconnects themselves.
This is very well written. I have always known that I have multiple personas that I allow others to see. Never the deepest me though… I have wondered about that a lot & it was great to read your take on it 😀