Why Online Social Identities Shouldn't Matter for Dancers

If there are over 500 million users on Facebook, that's just a small fraction of the world's close to 6 billion population. There may be other online platforms used by different countries, but digital connectivity for the individual is still a luxury for many. As much as the techno-minded prophets proclaim digital globalization, there are still stretches of the world that remain unplugged. Do you remember what that was like? Not having constant tweets, status updates, and visual information streaming into your daily radar? Those of us who lead online lives make the biggest noise in the digital sphere, but we are a small fraction of the world. Social identities online have been on the cultural map for most of the first decade of the twentieth century as our personas became more personalized, enhanced, and remixed. A street dancer who lives in this alternate online universe can't help but feel tempted to have some kind of footprint on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. But what if we took all of that away?

What if tomorrow, those social networks we relied upon were wiped out by some cataclysmic event? The repercussions would be huge for global communication. It would likely be a temporary state since most of these companies would seek to get us all back online as soon as possible. But what if it was permanent? What if we became digitally regressed and returned to lives networked by in-person and face-to-face relationships in our immediate neighborhoods and tribes? For a street dancer, this might mean returning to a lifestyle informed only by your immediate friends and peers in the same city, and maybe only the same neighborhood.

Our human nature desires to find out why we matter. We want to be validated. We want someone else to listen to what we're saying, to acknowledge our presence. In theory, there's a higher chance of this when you put yourself online. The more friends you have on Facebook, the more likely someone will "like" your latest status update. They may even leave a comment that brightens your day. So many of us in the street dance culture are chasing a temporal celebrity and recognition by becoming "known" for our dance videos online. Our youngest generation, probably those who started around 2007-2008 and onward, face the biggest internal struggles. What if they never get acknowledged for their dance skills online? Does it make their talent less worthwhile than the dancer who has millions of Twitter followers?

Social identities online should never be allowed to pollute the heart of a dancer. We can't allow it to mold the core of who we are. The need to be recognized would still exist even without the Internet, but it probably wouldn't cry out as loud inside our heads in those quiet moments of reflection. It's fine if street dancers want to use these technologies to promote themselves and to bring in business for teaching classes, performances, booking gigs, etc. But for those who are addicted to the need to be recognized, imagine a world that was not as rapidly connected as ours today. What would you do with your time? How would you see yourself?

To those susceptible to this addiction, know that you are not alone. You shouldn't be ashamed of who you are or who you want to become. Those are natural human desires. But let's take steps, at least small ones, towards moving to a healthier place. Your dance doesn't need technology. It needs you to be fully present in the now, to give your whole heart to the passion that brought you to move to the music in the first place.