When Real Life Interrupts: Maintaining Separate Images & Personas

Nov 10 2008 Comments

blog I am officially 21. My birthday was this past Friday and I want to take the time to thank you all for the well wishes and gifts. I’ve gotten a ton of both.

For my birthday I partied hard with my friends Friday and Saturday night. However, I encountered a dilemma on Sunday when I decided to upload my birthday pictures and I’d like to hear your thoughts on what you’d do in such a situation.

Some of us have completely separate lives on the web. I for one use an online alias for various reasons. I’m starting to get to the point where it’s become quite a task to keep up these two personas. However, they really aren’t all that different. Corvida talks a lot about technology and my real name (which I will not reveal yet) is a smart mouth who enjoys getting down and dirty with her friends. Shocking, I know. Otherwise there isn’t much of a difference between what I portray online versus online.

Regardless, the smart mouth is who celebrated her birthday. Not Corvida. So my pictures are not necessarily vulgar, but I think some of my online friends would be shocked to see this side of me. It made me think twice about the persona that I have online versus what my friends physically near me get to see.

Only a handful of my online friends knew what I’d planned for my birthday and those friends weren’t all that surprised. This is because they’ve seen the “other” side of me. The side of me that’s not all tech. The side of me that loves rap music, girls, and who is a bit of a…flirt. As you read this things may seems innocent enough. However, I just turned 21 and had no intentions of being innocent for my 21st birthday. I may be 21 for the next year, but you only turn 21 once! So my pictures resemble this not so innocent persona. I’m at odds on whether or not to upload my pictures on Flickr. I don’t want to pick and choose which pics should go and which pictures to keep to myself. Yet, I ave a reputation and image to maintain. Despite the privacy options that Flickr offers, it just isn’t enough for this dilemma.

So what’s a woman to do?


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  • Happy belated 21st birthday. Hey, can you picture yourself 21years later......get the picture??? Anyway, you have a long road ahead and you have already come this far. Congrats for that.
  • That sounds to be a great birthday celebration. Look forward to see those photos !
  • Hi Cordiva, This is a great question that more folks should be asking themselves. Im 38 years-old and believe that I have sorted my way through this dilemma over the past 10 years or so. I've decided that maintaining multiple personas online is unhealthy and unrealistic. Here's my advice:

    1) Focus on the person you want to be. This sounds new-age kooky, but it's legit. If you are going to be embarrassed by a picture of you, think about stopping the embarrassing behavior, rather than the photograph. The older you get, the easier this gets.

    2) Never post anything online that could be damaging to you professionally or personally. Avoid posting questionable content about your friends and ask them to do the same for you.

    Note that this doesn't mean you should mix your professional and personal information online. On your professional blog, for instance, it's a good idea to keep personal information to a minimum; simply because the personal stuff is not interesting for most of your readers. So, it's perfectly reasonable to have personal and professional "spaces" online - but don't attempt to maintain them as separate identities. Call them what they are - different spaces targeted at different consumers - but all different facets of the same you.
  • Some people/companies might instantly dismiss you for a promotion FOR THIS.
  • hi corvida!

    21 is such a great age to discover one's self. congratulations on your "two" personas, its still healthy to maintain separate interests in one character. have fun, don't be apologetic for being alive :)
  • Hi there Corvida :)

    I wrote a sort of follow-up answer post on my blog, in short my answer is show everyone your personalities, both are you, and just because you show one part of yourself here, doesn't mean readers can't be aware of the other :)
  • smernit
    Corvida--my advice is to post a few, but keep the really down and dirty ones in an area marked friends and family only (or whomever you want). In other words be yourself, but don't hit everyone too hard.
  • Hi Corvinda, good post, quite the modern dilemma :) I can relate, I am 29 and quite tattooed having worked in the music industry for a long time, now I find myself working on a parenting site (and being a Mum). Love my tattoos, no doubt, but I refrain from posting images of myself of this nature because unfortunately as it is - people do discriminate and develop pre-conceived notions about you - and a reputation is a very hard thing to shake. Some people/companies might instantly dismiss you for a promotion. Although there are quite a few very tattooed men as work, I still feel discrimination is at play for women.

    I say keep them private and work more on amalgamating your personas.
    Good luck.
  • I'm gonna advise you to only put up photos you wouldn't mind your grandma or a future employer seeing. We all live at least part of our lives on the web, so alot more is considered acceptable today than it would have been say, five years ago. However, there is some stuff that should remain between you and your nearest and dearest. Just use your judgement.
  • The days of maintaining separate personas are nearing an I end I feel. Authenticity derives from people feeling like they know you and not a fake you.

    I think a way to avoid a situation such as this current picture dilemna is to just be yourself online and off. Let people get to know you, wherever they are (as long as you trust them to a degree!).
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