I’m ready to start studying again, after taking a break, which included holidays, playing video games, doing freelance work, and just relaxing. Though I’ve done it before, I find it challenging to get back into research mode since I’ve been working a lot lately. But today, I was determined to read about the identity theories that revolve around the concept of persona. This meant stepping outside of my area of expertise and comfort zone. Although reading literature outside my area is a broadening experience, I sometimes find it difficult because I lack knowledge in the field. But that’s what getting a PhD is all about, right? Expanding and challenging our thoughts to develop a hypothesis.
I had trouble understanding Carl Jung’s theory of persona as the collective unconscious, which I tried to overcome by using a text-to-speech application. I found this useful because I could sit back and relax while Sally, a female EN voice, read Part One of Jung’s Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (1966) to me.
Jung’s exploration of persona and consciousness intrigued me since consciousness is something non-human entities don’t possess. Consciousness is inherently linked to persona, which has historically been considered in terms of human behaviour and socialisation (think: Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)). However, emerging persona studies literature applies persona concepts to non-human things like robots, animals, places, physical and digital objects, and artificial intelligence technologies.
This way of thinking involves considering the relationship between the individual and the collective, which Jung explored in the chapter I read. Although concepts of persona based on individual consciousness don’t directly relate to the online personas of non-human entities, they’re helpful in understanding how various actors collectively produce these personas. For example, pet influencers have an online persona facilitated by human and non-human actors collectively, even though they are distinctly non-human. They operate similarly to human influencers in that they have an audience who interacts with them online.
Although pets don’t project an individual identity outwardly, they have a coherent online identity that is an assemblage of digital objects communicated to an audience. This networked assemblage helps “perform” the persona, which is recognizable through posts, photos, sponsored content, and comments from fans. Pet influencers have become so popular that markets have opened around them, and pet influencer agencies exist. These influencers generate income on Instagram through brand promotions and sponsorships, indicating that they engage in similar micro-celebrity persona formation techniques as their human counterparts.
Pet influencers provide a clear juxtaposition to AI-powered personas. They raise questions about agency and authenticity for non-human personas since animals don’t traditionally have the agency or the ability to coordinate a public presentation of “self.” It offers a fascinating opportunity to investigate the issues surrounding the agency and authenticity of non-human personas and the ways that various actors and stakeholders are involved in formulating their online personas.
Perhaps one day I will look back fondly on these blog posts as the seeds of thought that inspired my fully-realised doctoral thesis on all things non-human online persona.
This blog was developed with the editing assistance of ChatGPT. The featured image was generated using Midjourney.