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What Does Your Profile Picture Say?!!

What Does Your Profile Picture Say?!!

Last updated on: July 16, 2010 at 11:55 am by Dan Wilkinson

What Does Your Profile Picture Say?!! 2010-07-16T11:55:39-05:00 Dan Wilkinson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Blogosphere is an amazing world, with each blog speaking its own mind, having its own personality. Your profile picture and your profile name is the window to the reader to your little world. Do you give enough thought before choosing a picture ? Do you know it can have tremendous effect on the reader’s decision or otherwise to check out your blog or not?

Various people choose many types of pics – self, other’s, cartoons, animals, things, slogan etc.

On the basis of my observations of profile pictures in blogs or social networking sites, I have tried to bring about a few things about what does a particular profile picture signify abou the blogger.

CELEBRITY STUFF : Either you love the celebrity too much ( ideally you should find a better way to express it!). But seriously speaking, it shows non seriousness towards blog and also lack of confidence in one’s own looks or personality.

LOVE- FLORA AND FAUNA : Someone using an animal, bird or flower etc can mean two things, one that the person draws a parallel with the prominent, well known chaacteristics of the living being. Like a lion, for being royal and powerful, a penguin for its innocent and sweet looks, a sparrow for its chirpinss or its ability to fly freely and a flower for its beauty.

NATURE AND OBJECTS : Same goes for things of natural beauty, like sky, clouds, river, fire. Here, for example,boundless sky is an expression of one’s broad mindset etc. Objects like earthern lamp or light signifies hope in the time of despair or being a self made person.

PICTURES OF SELF/HUMAN FACE. This is one sphere which needs maximum elaboration and its quite interesting.

A passport kind of a pic shows someone very serious, especially serious about one’s image and one’s blog and wants a proper representation of his identity on his blog.

A close up of the face of the blogger with light, smiling and pleasant expression shows the person is social, with straight forward approach towards te blog and has nothing to hide about him/herself.

A Side cut of a face, musing, thinking, shows the person either wants to partly hide his identity and secondly wants to highlight the thinking, ponderous side of his personality. If thoughtfully chosen by the blogger, then such charactristics like deep observations and thoughts would be visible in his/her blog too. ( This one is my personal favourite!)

PICTURES WITH FACE HIDDEN (PARTIALLY)

YOU DON’T KNOW ME :Hiding the face completely means the person doesnot want to reveal her identity at all. But relates to her blog hence puts her touch to the pic by darkening her pic, avoiding the exposure of face but pics of body parts like hands, feet may used. It also adds an element of mystery and the pic remain very individualistic.

THE BEAUTIFUL ME : Hiding the face partially and highlighting a beautiful feature of the face, say only eyes, or the flush of a cheek, hair, only ear with earlrings etcis another interesting thing that I have noticed. It signifies that although the person doesnot watn to be recognised or rvealed but wants to draw attention to that feature, which surely he/she rates as very good.

EYES : This is most commonly seen, one eye in close up. (That makes me laugh always, it looks like retina scan to me!) Its wierd and that is what the blogger wants to show

NUDITY : Display of obscene gestures, nudity or showing off one’s intimate body parts, even partially, is all attention seeking behaviour or else it can mean that the person is givinga window the the content of the blog. ( can see the glee in your eyes, u guys!!)

MESSAGE FREAKS : Some people like putting message/thought on things like a T-shirt as profile pic. Again shows need for anonimity and telling the reader his/her attitude about a thing. Moreover its quite imaginative also.

GIRL IN THE CLOAK : sometimes, in order to avoid the attention of non-serious male readers/bloggers (who are mouse-clicking happy to see a pretty face!), girls choose profile pics which are non-descript.

ATTITUDE – HAVE IT FLAUNT IT – some profile pics show certain body language showing highhandedness, arrogance, superiority or “couldn’t care less” attitude, say a pic of lower limbs of a man sitting with feet up on a working table. Its OK if you have attitude, but then that should be the shade of your blog too.

The only point I want to make here is that its alright to have a profile picture whatsoever you choose, afterall you are the best judge and its your blog, but having a profile picture, and for that matter a profile name too, congruent to your blog, the flavour, the feel of your blog is important. Afterall,it can affect your blog traffic, when the pic is too bland or uninteresting or repulsive.

Lastly, in no way I am saying I am an expert on this, everything above is purely my observation and my perception.

Have fun!

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