Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

I think it's important to consider if the model for "self building" online that some bloggers have advocated is too much a property ownership model, e.g., I own property therefore I am. For a blogger, that property might be a blog, and more generally, it might be a URL or email address or IM nickname, etc.

I thing there is value in owning things like URLs and email addresses, and even teens could realize that value. But, I am not sure that value is a foundational kind-of selfhood / identity. There may be identity in it, e.g., in one context, I am the guy who owns the green house on the corner. But, it's not: I own the green house therefore I am.

Youngsters need to explore the world and themselves before they begin to establish their identity (or several).

Identities are commitments.
Reputations can be favourable as well as not.

The bigger the sandcastle, the more work you put into it, the more inclined you are to stick with it, protect it, etc. Regular purges by a self-made tide of absence or neglect keep things clean and simple until you're ready to mix in the cement and establish a more concrete presence.

It's just like playing a multiplayer game. Mess about with shortlived characters until you're happy to settle down.

I think the biggest hurdle is to convince the fuddy duddies that there's no need to attach online identities to physical identities - one only needs to know how identifiable any given identity is.

Grafitti cannot be libel until the author is determined. Authority and reputation are not things that can be enjoyed by the anonymous. However, argument does not need authority. It is only the promotion of an argument that benefits from it.
So, without reputation, falsehood cannot be promoted, nor can it be self-evidently supported.

Your (and danah's) observation might be interesting only for the fact that you are observing behaviour that has always existed, but you've never noticed before (damn, how those intertubenets create a cool anti-environment).

"Young'uns" typically do not care (and have never cared) about establishing permanent and persistent reputation until later in life - later being a relative term, of course. Young people tend to do things about which they might later be embarrassed, assuming they were ever found out. The fact that a web page is often more persistent than the cliched "permanent (school) record)" makes for interestingly changed dynamics when youthful indiscretions are later discovered at inconvenient times. However, I would not at all be surprised when such things are accepted and ignored by a future turn of society that is considerably more mature about such things than our North American society currently is.

David,
Have you read this: http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/index.html
It goes with Marks "I would not at all be surprised when such things are accepted and ignored by a future turn of society that is considerably more mature about such things than our North American society currently is".
But is it not also about "building selves in the new public"? In that case, your second guess might be right: "maybe something else entirely is going on".