Social media platforms allow for more well-constructed and prepared thoughts to be released to the public, unlike offline interactions. Users can choose what images others are allowed to see by posting specific content on their profile. An even more filtered way to do this is to make the profile "private", in which only people that send follow requests from their accounts, and are then accepted by the owner of the profile, are allowed to view the profile and its content. These sites, like Twitter, provide hindsight, extended time, and a variety of options for the user to choose and present what they want others to see on their profile.

For some, this process of curating content online creates an online theme or aesthetic on the profile. This can be intentional, as I personally match my profile picture to my cover photo so that my profile has a visual color scheme and aesthetic. Other alternatives are accounts that either do not have a theme at all or do not have a purposeful theme.

This section will explore motivations for using Twitter and how they impact an individual's profile and perception for other users through primary research in the form of auditory interviews.

Include photos of twitter profiles

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With the popularization of social media and its inherent visual applications, the implementation of visual aesthetics arose. Some users only apply this to the actual images that are static on their profile, like the profile picture and cover photo. However, some individuals take it farther so as to have a cohesive theme throughout their entire profile in which the visual aesthetic is consistent with the content on the profile. In my research, Branden explained how his account has a visual theme in which his profile picture has a coordinating color scheme to his header- the large image at the top of his profile, also known as a cover photo (0:25). Branden is a 19 year-old college student, so he is part of a specific demographic that includes his peers and the famous figures he chooses to follow on his personal account for recreational use. He also said that a majority of his actual content are tweets that he finds relatable or are related to photography (0:05), whether it be his own or supporting others' photography and art. Despite his minimal amount of tweets that he develops himself, his profile is still expressive and constructive. His profile image and cover photo are expressive as they reveal details about his life and his interests. His pinned tweet is one of his greatest accomplishments as it is a photo he took on the cover of a magazine. This supports Kevin Roozen's Threshold Concept that all writing is inherently developed by and expressive of an individual's ideologies and identities (Roozen, 2016). Branden's theme indicates that he is an avid Twitter user that has a big enough platform that people will appreciate his theme and curated content.

On the other side of this profile use is users that do not 1) purposefully have a theme 2) have any theme at all. The writing of these users is typically more infused with constructive and expressive writing because it is less focused on the profile and more emphasized through the tweets themselves.Those users are on Twitter to tweet or see other people's tweets for the experience and interaction.

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Sara Strasser is a graduate student and instructor at Ball State University. In my interview with her, I brought up the fact that her age and occupation puts her in a different demographic from the one that I exist in online. She states in her bio that she is a graduate student and when I asked her about this to evaluate her knowledge on the sphere of Twitter that she is involved in, she said that she was well aware of it and that this distinction was purposeful (0:56). Despite her involvement and partiality to certain digital cultures that are rooted in pop culture, Strasser re-branded her original Twitter as an assignment for her students. After her personal Twitter was converted to a class Twitter, she created a new profile based on the advice she received to utilize Twitter as a networking platform. Because of her intentions for this new profile, it affected the content she allowed on her profile. Her cover photo was reflective of a subject she was working on in graduate school and she chose a picture of herself for her profile picture that also conveyed her political involvement in the fight for women's rights. Strasser said that she was less particular about what she retweeted onto her profile than she was about what she posted herself. This is a direct form of constructive writing in which she conveyed that it is harder to make relevant and expressive tweets than it was to see a tweet that resonated with her. In examining her profile, the aspect of self-construction through writing includes what she retweets as well as her own tweets. When the overall content of an individual's Twitter is synthesized, it is easier to form a more holistic impression and perception of that individual through all of the writing on the page. Just because someone does not directly say something themselves, does not disqualify that writing from being constructive when applied to the individual that retweeted it. The synthesis and holistic approach of analyzing all of the content on a profile can be beneficial because it provides a combination of diverse perspectives and opinions that the retweeter might not have been able to come to on their own, but still agrees with.

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While Strasser did not curate a specific visual theme, she inadvertently curated her content based her motivation for creating her account: networking. While Strasser's tweets and retweets might not have a specific commonality, they reveal her interests, thoughts, and current events that impact her. Even though it is not exactly her own writing, this writing is still constructive and expressive.

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