Bell describes peg communities as “Coat pegs on which we choose to temporarily hang parts of our identities” (Bell, 254). I have to say that I am not an avid user or member of any online peg communities. The only online community that I am a member of is facebook and that is due to the constant harassment and probing from my friends to join. Otherwise, I probably would not have any online connections at all. Although, I have joined facebook I do not accept any friend requests from people I do not know even if they are friends with some of my friends. I am still skeptical of the whole online community life and worry too much about people that I do not know, seeing things about me and about my life. I do have to say that I have enjoyed using facebook so far and even though I don’t check it or post to it very often, it is always fun to check out what my friends and family members have been up to if I haven’t had a chance to talk to them in a while. I would then have to agree that peg communities are a place where people can leave a part of their identity for other people in that community to see and be a part of. Although, the size of my facebook community is small and limited in terms of members that I allow to see my page, I still am expressing and sharing ideas and events in my life that allow other people in my facebook community to see who I am as a person and get at least some part of my identity that I allow to show up online.
I have chosen myspace (www.myspace.com), twitter (www.twitter.com) and bebo (www.bebo.com) as sites I would like to explore and learn more about by writing about them in Assignment 2. I chose these sites mainly because of their popularity. I have never used any of these sites and I’d like to know what they have to offer, compared to facebook and other online communities.
Bell, David. The Cybercultures Reader. 2nd. 1. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000. 254-63. Print.
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