Contrary to the utopian theories of transparency and openness promoted in Web 2.0 discourse, and the moral panics around lack of privacy online, lifestreaming is not an unvarnished digital stream of someone's online actions. Instead it is a carefully edited, purposeful construction of self. Lifestreamers choose what to reveal and conceal: they monitor their own and other's actions, publicizing certain aspects of their lives while keeping other parts to themselves, and they may even exaggerate or falsify information to produce a desired effect. The resulting lifestream is an attempt to inculcate a particular version of oneself that appeals to others in the networked audience.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 638