Hyperreal Identity: Transformation of Identity

-By Kamal Raj Sigdel

 

I was greatly touched when the small child pointed me to the screen. My curious question was "where is your father?" His father is actually in America who was chatting with him and his mother in the Internet cafe. It's been almost five years since the separated family have been making the low-cost cafe their rendezvous.

 

The rare insight the child's answer clicked my mind was the fact that identity has really transformed. The child is getting confused with an internal curiosity, which one is the real identity of his father: whether the consciousness of his physical father in America or the online MSN icon that chats with him and his mother day by day. I am afraid; the child who has never seen his father physically conforms to the hyperreal identity reacting in different mediums and technologies. He could have answered that his father is in America but for him the more real one is that of the screen. So he preferred to point at the screen rather than answering the whereabouts of his father.

 

It is not only his father he identifies with the MSN online icon, he defines his own identity with the personal email account that has been interacting with several other identities worldwide. He and his mother represent billions of others who have gradually subordinated their physical identities to the hyperreal ones in the contemporary world of technologies. I often confront my friends on the pathways and they decline to speak for a single moment, alarming that they are in a great hurry. They ask me to come in contact on their yahoo or msn or phones where they could talk more "comfortably" - symptomatic of the change towards hyperreal identity.

 

In these last few years, the change was so vast that we did not dare to notice. It was for the simple reason that the change was not physical one; it was too subtle and psychological. And the realization of this transformation could cause a serious depression, which is the typical problem a modern man faces these days, and this is the major cause behind our resistance to acknowledge the change.

 

Rapid growth of information and communication technology, increased number of low-cost Internet cafes, increased IT knowledge among school children, college students, housewives, adolescents and adults and the resulting Internet culture have changed our society drastically. The physical side of this change could be visible but the psychological change or impact could only be felt and is still unexplored. Our society has become more complex and more postmodern than modern.

 

The question of identity has become more audible as migration and separation of family members continued to grow.  The escalation of violence in Nepal and consequent growth in migration intensified the problem of identity. Reported 600,000 internally displaced people, their influx overseas in search of jobs and the resulting isolation brought forward the value of identity. The rest of the family members taking refuge in urban centers demanded alternative ways to be in contact with their separated ones. The low-cost technologies like email/internet and phones fulfilled their desire. This situation gave birth to a new generation of mobile population who find themselves defined and who feel as if they are intact with their own community as they could easily anchor themselves to a certain email id, no matter where they are. They feel uneasy to talk face to face as the Internet space becomes more open and comfortable. It's really a boon for us to be able to realize that we also have entered into a new era of postmodern complexities where individuals live in a hyperreal world with hyperreal identities.

 

[Manuscript date: June 2003]