Digital identities and profiles

The development of the participatory web, or web 2.0, has, in the last few years, brought about a multiplication of what we call user profiles. Indeed, every platform asks the user to create a “profile,” from social networks to online retail platforms such as meetup sites and online games. The writer, as well as the researcher, create their own authorial face while simultaneously developing original self-narratives. We would then say that, henceforth, authors “editorialize” themselves. They use digital tools and their associated features in order to produce as an author. Given that it is constructed online, the authorial identity is therefore dynamic (never definitively complete), heterodetermined (namely by the readers) and preformative. Furthermore, these distortions of the forms and functions of the user profile may be considered literary practices that, through their playful creativity, subvert common usage of the online profile and its social implications.