You Ve Got Mail Furthers By Danah Boyd Analysis

Some argue that the use and popularity of social media can oftentimes promote the creation of multiple identities or personalities. The connections within both You’ve Got Mail and Danah Boyd’s It’s Complicated, not only refute this claim, but also prove the importance and benefits of using social media when navigating different social contexts. Danah Boyd defines social context as a particular social situation with a particular audience, both of which one has to adapt to and respond to accordingly. You’ve Got Mail furthers this claim by using the characterization and character development of Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly. Although while some suggest that social media encourages the development of multiple identities, both Boyd’s piece and You’ve

One example of this is a black male from South Central Los Angeles who had applied to an Ivy League school. In his application, he had written an impressive essay about being an inner city kid who had to overcome so much to get to where he was. After reading through the application and liking what they read, the admissions people of the school went to do some online research and found his MySpace page. Contradictory to what he had written in his essay, they found inappropriate language along with a substantial amount of gang references. Does this mean that the student had used social media to create multiple different selves? “Without knowing the teen, my guess was that he was genuine in his college essay. I also suspected that he would never dare talk about his desire to go to a prestigious institution in his neighborhood because doing so would cause him to be ostracized socially, if not physically” (30). Boyd suggests here that despite what the college admissions people might have thought about the MySpace page, it is not necessarily true that the student was lying in his essay. Like most social media users, he was just adapting to each social situation, and acting how he saw

This idea deeply connects with what Joe Fox does throughout the movie. Rather than looking at it like his actions are rejecting his offline identity, one can also see it as Joe furthering his identity online, in a way that is not possible offline. Throughout the movie, Joe consistently opens up to Kathleen online in an intimate way, sharing parts of himself that wouldn’t be accepted in other social contexts. He is able to get rid of his job and his wealth, and instead just be his true self. By ridding himself of this materiality, he is able to be himself with Kathleen in a way that other social contexts might not permit. This Joe seen online is not a separate Joe, but rather a continuation of the Joe seen offline, thus proving the idea that social media promotes the creation of two separate identities to be