'Everybody Puts Their Whole Life on Facebook': Identity Management and the Online Social Networks of LGBTQ Youth
DOI[PLACEHOLDER: Annotation on how LGBTQ youth manage identity presentation across their Facebook networks.]
Appears in themes
LGBTQ youth must navigate Facebook's architecture of enforced singular identity when their social reality requires selective disclosure to different audiences. The platform's collapsed context, presenting one profile to family, school, and queer community simultaneously, forces identity management strategies that range from uniformly "out" to carefully segmented, revealing how real-name platforms become sites of involuntary disclosure.
Network analysis of LGBTQ youth reveals how different audience segments within a single Facebook ego network create competing demands for identity performance. The network structure itself, specifically the degree to which different social circles overlap or remain distinct, determines what kind of self-knowledge is possible in mediated environments.