Facebook Profile Picture

            A Facebook profile picture usually says a lot about the person it belongs to.  It not only tells us who the person is, but it can also tell a small story about their life or give us a glimpse of their personality.  However, whether that glimpse or story is a real depiction of their life is the question.  How the person presents the picture and how the person looking at the picture interprets it are two factors that determine if it is a real representation.

            The person who owns the Facebook profile picture ultimately gets to determine what the audience sees. You can portray yourself in any light you want because you can basically choose what part of your life you want other people to see.  You could spend a majority of your life sitting and watching tv but make your profile picture from that one night you went to a party, and a lot of people may think you’re a party person.  You can crop out people or things you don’t want others to see to make them think of you in a certain way.

            My Facebook profile picture is of me at a party for a Christian organization called NAVS with a few of my friends.  I didn’t put my profile picture up thinking “I want to persuade someone”.  I wasn’t intentionally trying to persuade people of anything, but now that I look at it closely, I can tell that I was trying to make people think certain things.  I put this as my profile picture mostly because it was humorous.  It’s a picture of my friends and I, all making different faces and poses, and we’re all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters.  So my main goal of putting this picture up was to persuade people that I’m a fun person.  I like to have fun and I would like people to think that and think that I have a sense of humor.  Also, when putting this picture as my profile picture, I had to crop it.  The original picture was a little bit larger and had a few other people in it, but I cut them out - mostly because Facebook made me crop my picture into a square - but also because I wanted myself to be in the center.  My picture makes it seem like I’m “the head of the crew” or like I’m popular.  My pose and facial expression portray myself as being funny and confident when in reality, I’m actually a very shy person.  This just shows that a person’s profile picture might not be exactly who they are but maybe who they would like to be.