“Be careful with your digital footprint it will haunt you later in the future.”
This is a sentence I’m sure a lot of people have heard from their parents before. But in this day and age, the majority of people are active in the digital world, posting about their day-to-day lives. So how dangerous is our digital footprint related to our identity and how we represent ourselves?
Having social media and actively posting on it automatically gives us a digital identity and other users will perceive us in a certain way. The user can decide and control big parts of this through the posted content. Some users are perceived as funny, and some are pretentious, snobby or fake. One person who gets a lot of different character traits assigned to them is the well-known rapper Kanye West. His digital identity portrays a controversial and rather negative character due to his unfiltered opinions and the provocative statements he shares across all platforms. Examples are his support for Donald Trump, comments on slavery and intrusive thoughts criticising people. This causes a lot of people to write hateful critiques and comments and is a great example of how our digital identity can affect our lives. After sharing his thoughts out loud on Twitter he risked his job and career multiple times, losing brand deals, contracts and family members as well as friends and part of his community.
Nevertheless, his actions face backlash, is it justified? Barely anyone sharing those hateful comments knows him personally but shares their opinion on him and criticizes him but what if his online personality is just a facade and character that lives online? In my opinion, this is the question we have to ask ourselves. Is it okay to judge someone based on their online personality? How well does it reflect them? And how does it shape us?
Only yourself can answer that question and reflect on your judgement of other people. I would love to hear people’s opinions on this topic so let me know what you think about the saying that your digital footprint will haunt you is true.
In today’s digital age, our online presence becomes a significant part of our identity. We can shape how we’re perceived by controlling the content we post. However, examples like Kanye West illustrate how a controversial online persona can have real-life consequences. The question arises: Is it fair to judge someone solely based on their online personality, which may or may not reflect their true self? It’s an important reflection point for us to consider how we form opinions and the impact of our digital footprints on our lives.
Hi, I like you article, that our identity in digital world is affecting us in every way. Kanye West is a good example on a negative side, but I think there is more to talk about with the term ‘digital footprints’ and how it connected to your good example, and maybe writing more could explain your point better.