I want to challenge this notion that identity doesn’t matter. Identity is the only thing that matters, because content forms identity and vice versa. They are not separate things.
If you identify as a writer, you are more likely to write. You make a time to write, you read books, you think about stories, and so on.
If you identify as a gamer, you are more likely to game. You find gaming communities, you try new tactics, you think your next session, and so on.
If you identify as a trooner, you are more likely to…do things that trooners do. Disgusting.
Anyway, I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Atomic Habits and the author makes it very clear that mind comes before matter. In a sense, your habits create your identity over time, but if you want to change your habits you need to change your identity. With this in mind, identity clearly matters a lot.
Online content is a habit. We are cued, we respond and then we feel good afterwards. Maybe we like to post a study that makes a mockery of the our opposite interlocuter. Maybe we get off on ratioing our opponents. Think about @lporiginalg. He has style, but that style is his identity. Whatever it is, we become known by our content. We know each other by what we post most often.
Identity politics then is all politics. You believe yourself to be a certain category and so you are more likely to fulfill it. White nationalism is just as valid as democratic socialism. But people do change over time. Do their habits change and thus shift their identity? More likely they have mini epiphanies and thus evolve their habits.
BAP is a great example. He identifies as BAP, and his habits (like his idiosyncratic voice) generate a positive feedback loop for him. He is rewarded for speaking like that, and it creates his identity. Or in the negative, think about reply guys. Their content is always replying to an ethot, and in other people’s minds that is their identity.
The human mind is a powerful thing. You can literally become whatever you want if you think you are that. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes not so much. Be careful of your habits (or on Twitter, your content) because your identity is the sum total of everything you do.