Week #4: Personality

So this week’s assignment in my social media class is about personality. How does my personality shine through in my blog? I would say, through humor. The whole basis of my blog is that my interests vary more quickly than most, and that I like to try things that are new and different so I can gain perspective on life. But my humor and my voice remains a constant in each of my blog posts. When I write about what I am passionate about at any current moment I write in the same voice I use in everyday life. The casual manner in which I write (I hope) helps the reader really hear what I am saying and understand any sarcastic undertones in my writing. I also love to share pictures or video to help to shape others perspectives on a topic in order to give that extra angle for the visual learner about what makes me tick.

Whenever asked about my personality, I always remember the team bonding activities we did in volleyball in order to learn more about each of our teammates before we got into the competitive part of our season. One of our annual activities was this ego booster: Everyone would be in the same room with a piece of paper taped to their back and a marker in hand. We had to go up to each of our teammates and anonymously write a word or a phrase about that person’s personality on their paper that reminded us of them. In the end, each of us had a paper that said all these great inspirational things about our personalities that we could look back at throughout the season after a tough practice and realize that all of our teammates loved us no matter what. When I looked at my paper, I actually learned more about my personality because I saw how people perceived what I said and how I said it, especially the freshman who didn’t know me that well yet. Apparently I was hilarious, and really really good looking (Zoolander, come on.) This activity really increased everyone’s confidence and taught me a lot about how I act in public, and how people’s first impression of me is formed very much by our initial encounters.

So in this blog, I realize that though I may be emitting a certain persona, everyone interprets things differently. So just to make sure my personality is shaped by me and not only how people perceive my writing, I have included a slide show to show some of my facial expressions because a lot of my personality comes through them. Just like Candice noted in her blog about personality, sometimes when you are starting something new, you take a sort of “back seat” at first until you learn the culture of your audience and what is accepted practice among the peers you are interacting with. I do feel as though I have put some aspects of my personality on the back burner, as they may not paint the most professional portrait of me. That said, I will go out on a limb and share some of my pictures with the most personality with you. (warning: some of these are not the most flattering)

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