Cross Gender Identity: Membangun Identitas Virtual oleh Roleplayer di Media Sosial Twitter

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine how roleplayers construct their virtual identities in role-playing games on the social media platform Twitter and seeks to investigate whether the use of these virtual identities has an impact on the real lives of the informants. One prevalent form of anonymous activity on social media, particularly Twitter, is Roleplay (RP) accounts. Roleplaying on Twitter involves users creating alternative personas and interacting with others through these identities in the virtual world. A notable phenomenon within the roleplay community is cross-gender roleplay, where individuals portray characters of a gender different from their biological gender. This research employs a qualitative descriptive approach, necessitating the use of virtual ethnography due to the study's subjects and setting being situated on Twitter, a virtual platform. The study involved five informants. Data analysis encompassed data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. This research reveals that roleplayers construct virtual identities by selecting characters they wish to portray, often reflecting their ideal self-concept or identities they want to explore. The choice of character takes into consideration the personal aspects of the informants. Subsequently, they enter the character learning phase to better understand the chosen character. Most roleplayers conduct character research by seeking information on the internet and observing their environment (the roleplay world). The goal is to enable them to portray the character more accurately and convincingly. Furthermore, players adjust their communication style, account appearance, and interactions to align with the character they are portraying. All of these constitute a unique form of self-expression and create opportunities for identity exploration that may be difficult to achieve in real life. However, this identity exploration can also lead to identity falsification and potentially cause harm to other individuals.