My alter ego is a bedroom performer. I am jiving to Clairo, whose music video titled ‘Pretty Girl‘ is the inspiration for this video selfie.

Password: bedroom

Clairo is one of many young ‘bedroom’ or ‘dream pop’ artists, including the likes of Frank Ocean, Gus Dapperton etc. who make lo-fi music.

“My TV ain’t HD, that’s too real.” – Frank Ocean

The common goal is to produce minimal music with no frills and containing low-bitrate samples.

Clairo has a low maintenance YouTube channel where she posted a low res webcam video of her in her bedroom mouthing the lyrics and lazy dancing to an original song she wrote. She had no makeup on, greasy hair and a messy background. She played with silly glasses and ugly toys while mouthing the lyrics. The video was grainy and the audio was distorted, and everyone loved it.

By recording my video selfie with Photo Booth, I could alter my identity to take some form of Clairo’s. In the video, I am me, portraying elements of someone else. Like Clairo, I went barefaced with a towel headband, messy room in the background. The overexposed sleeping cat on the bed was unintentional but adds to how I am different from her, despite trying to imitate her video.

In a way, my identity is concealed because I am not speaking in the video. My voice and speech mannerisms, which are part of my identity, are concealed from the audience. The low res video and grain does not give an accurate portrayal of my physical features and environment.

The video is extremely grainy as the Photo Booth camera does not work well in low light. I have a few unsightly props – reflective sunglasses and an ugly pink toy. These items are similar to the ones Clairo uses in her video, but they are my version of those things, which shows some personality of mine.

We have a lot of control over portraying our alter identity, yet so little because of our current identities will still peek through in some ways that are uniquely us.