Triangulatingthe Self
Triangulatingthe Self
Triangulatingthe Self
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Jenny L. Davis
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The self is made up of multiple identities, and social actors experience social life and
social relationships through the lenses of the identities that they hold. One comes
to know and define the self in two related ways: first, by examining their own roles
and how they behave in these roles, and second, by observing others’ reactions to
them (Cooley 1902; Mead 1934). Self-definitions, though predominately stable, can
shift over time, across situations, and amid new experiences (Stryker 1980). Identity
meanings and their performative accomplishment are always historically, culturally,
and structurally contingent.
The contemporary era is characterized by network connectivity (Castells 1996)
and an increasing corpus of communication media. danah boyd (2010) refers to
this as a networked era, and the interaction structure as networked publics. In this
vein, Rainie and Wellman (2012) refer to those who occupy networked publics
as networked individuals. Within a networked era, part (perhaps a large part) of
how one comes to know the self is by looking at online reflections (Gonzales 2008;
Gonzales and Hancock 2011; Walther 1996). In the present work, I examine the
Direct all correspondence to Jenny L. Davis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James
Madison University, Sheldon Hall, MSC 7501, Harrisonburg, VA 22807; e-mail: Davis5jl@jmu.edu.
Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 37, Issue 4, pp. 500–523, ISSN: 0195-6086 print/1533-8665 online.
© 2014 Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1002/SYMB.123
Triangulating the Self 501
mutually influential relationship between profiled data and the selves who produce
and consume it. Specifically, I look to answer the following questions:
1. What unique conditions do networked individuals face as they negotiate self and
identity in a networked era?
2. How do networked individuals respond to the unique conditions of self and iden-
tity negotiation in a networked era?
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of particular methodological techniques
for understanding selfing processes of networked individuals?
METHODS
The present work is part of a larger qualitative study of social media practices,
rooted in Facebook. Data collection began on March 14, 2011, and continues into
the present. This article relies directly on synchronous text-based exchanges (N = 32)
and FtF interactional interviews (N = 17), while the larger project also entails ongo-
ing content analysis of News Feed data from a larger population of Facebook users
(N = 232).
Guiding my methodological decisions is an aim toward “quality research”
(Markham 2013) or that which resonates with the context, the participants, and
the audience. Others refer to this as validity (Hesse-Biber and Griffin 2013), or
user-centered methodologies (Beneito-Montagut 2011). Quality research produces
robust data, capturing participant voices and experiences at the most local level, in
ways that facilitate theoretical abstraction (Markham 2009).
Sample
The sample originates from my direct Facebook network, expanding snowball
style out into indirect (and in-indirect) networks. I began by creating a separate
502 Symbolic Interaction Volume 37, Number 4, 2014
I draw on the unique but connected data from each form of interaction. In doing
so, I capture an optimally robust picture of sociality among networked publics, a
picture that resonates with the context and participants and speaks to relevant the-
oretical questions about selfing processes of networked individuals. Throughout the
analysis, I draw from both FtF interviews and text-based exchanges, demarcating the
data set from which each quote was gleaned.
Social Psychology of Self and Identity: Balancing the Ideal and Authentic
I start with the assumption that self and identity are collaborative accomplish-
ments, constructed through interaction (Cooley 1902; Goffman 1959; Mead 1934).
A key tension within the selfing process is that between an ideal image and an authen-
tic performance (Goffman 1959; Hochschild 1983). By “ideal” I refer not to a value
judgment but to identity meanings in line with the actor’s self-views (Burke and
Stets 2009). Successful identity verification relies upon the (perceived) acceptance
of the presented identity by others, and more directly, it relies upon identity affirm-
ing interactions. As such, authenticity is of utmost importance. Authenticity refers to
an uncalculated core, an unmediated guide for the actor’s inner thoughts and emo-
tions, such that outward actions are mere reflections of what lies inside (Trilling 1972).
Importantly, this is an impression the actor maintains not only for others but also for
the self (Davis 2012b; Goffman 1959; Hochschild 1983).
Social actors utilize a variety of tools to accomplish authenticity, including props,
settings, and reflexive engagement. In these ways, they work to manage their own
and others behaviors, while gauging and reacting to environmental feedback (Burke
and Stets 2009; Goffman 1955, 1959, 1961; Snow and Anderson 1987; Swann and
Hill 1982). Achieving an ideal-authentic balance entails accomplishing a particular
version of the self, but doing so in a seemingly natural way; it is to engage in identity
work, while hiding the labor of doing so.
Goffman (1959) shows how social actors separate the front stage from the back,
pulling off elaborately coordinated performances, while obscuring their performed
506 Symbolic Interaction Volume 37, Number 4, 2014
nature. But the accomplishment of identity goes deeper than this. As pointed out by
Hochschild (1983), one strives not only to seem authentic but also to be authentic.
In this vein, social actors manage both impressions and emotions, such that perfor-
mative displays are not empty signifiers but true reflections of the self. Hochschild
(1983) captures these performative layers with her conceptual use of “surface” and
“deep” acting. The former refers to the performance itself. The latter is the reflexive
experience of the performance, the felt “realness” of it.
Processes of the self are always complex and laborious on the part of the actor.
They are also, always, contextually contingent. In the following section, I address
the first research question: What unique conditions do networked individuals face as
they negotiate self and identity in a networked era?
identity performances. Rather than separate spheres, social life moves fluidly within
and between the physical and the digital—neither more “real” than the other. In
this vein, Deuze (2011) argues that networked individuals live not only with but also
through and in media, leading to his designation of social life in the contemporary
era as “media life” (138).
Online interactions act as impetus for future offline activities, an integral part
of present experiences, and a mechanism of nostalgia for events gone by. Digital
platforms are used to announce gatherings, send invitations (formal and informal),
coordinate plans, and build excitement as some event (large or small) approaches.
Similarly, SNS users report spending considerable time looking at, commenting on,
and tagging pictures, ostensibly recounting/rebroadcasting offline engagements (Sub-
rahmanyam et al. 2008).
The prevalence of mobile devices with built-in cameras and social media applica-
tions enable real-time updates, further integrating physical experiences with digital
documentation. These devices, coupled with social media architectures that display
user activity publicly to the user’s networks, make documentation not only increas-
ingly easy but also an increasingly accepted and expected part of social interaction
(McLaughlin and Vitak 2012).
The fluidity between online and offline sociality is cast into particularly sharp
relief through the experiences of those who, for a time, disable their Facebook
accounts. In so doing, they remove themselves from a key hub within the social
realm (Portwood-Stacer 2012). Lawrence (male, 30, text-based exchange) describes
his experience of digital disconnection as follows:
It’s like I was in a little bubble, I had no idea what was going on and I missed a
lot. People didn’t contact me because I wasn’t on Facebook, or they talked about
things I wasn’t familiar with, and to be honest, it was a little awkward when I saw
some of my friends offline, like we had missed a beat or something.
Indeed, the integration of past, present, and future offline interactions within
online spaces—updated both in real time and asynchronically—aid in the negotia-
tion of experiential and relationship meanings. This is supported by research which
shows that interactions through digital media can both strengthen and weaken
emotional bonds. Hancock, Landrigan, and Silver (2007) find that online exchanges
reinforce and improve social bonds between interaction partners. Similarly, Ellison
and colleagues delineate significant social capital benefits gained through SNS par-
ticipation (Ellison 2011; Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007). On the other hand,
Tokunaga (2011) finds a positive relationship between feelings of jealousy and time
spent checking a romantic partner’s online profile—essentially weakening bonds
through online connection. In this vein, Davis’ (2010) study of MySpace shows that
the demotion out of a Friend’s “Top 8” both reflects and affects negative changes in
participants’ relationships.
During a FtF interview, Candace (female, 27) invites me to observe as she goes
through her Friend list to “clear out” those with whom she no longer wishes to share
508 Symbolic Interaction Volume 37, Number 4, 2014
a connection. Her decisions illustrate the fluid online/offline nature of sociality. She
explains:
I’m from a small nowhere town where people feel obligated to accept Friend
requests … They might be upset that I unfriended them … I still keep a lot of
them around because I have to go home and see them, and I know they’ll just be
like, “oh Candace unfriended me” and it’ll be all kinds of crazy gossip.
She then goes on to unfriend several members of her network due to presumed
disconnection (i.e., they do not communicate regularly) coupled with the assumption
that she will not see the Friend in future FtF settings. This latter criterion, that she can
avoid these Friends offline, reduces the risk that she will suffer social repercussions
for severing the digital tie.
Life takes place through the physical and the digital, often simultaneously. Offline
emotions prompt online actions and online actions influence bodied emotions.
Relationships are established and maintained across digital and physical settings.
Behaviors are planned, recorded, shared, and re-articulated synchronically and
asynchronically, with physically and nonphysically copresent others. Authenticity
depends on the perceived consistency of performances between various platforms
and media. Although users can partially accomplish this through strategic use of
privacy settings and/or selective Friending practices (Marwick and Ellison 2012;
Raynes-Goldie 2010), the norms of openness (Mclaughlin and Vitak 2012) and over-
lapping social networks (discussed later) create significant barriers to performative
segregation.
Accuracy
Within social network sites, the normative expectation is for users to represent
themselves accurately (Davis 2012b; Mclaughlin and Vitak 2012). By accurate, I do
not imply a capital T “True Self.” Rather, like all arenas of identity performance, dig-
itally mediated identity performance represents a particular version of the self. As
Hogan (2010) delineates with his concept of self-exhibitions, networked individuals
curate their performances on social network site platforms, highlighting, omitting,
and strategically framing identity-based content. However, unlike anonymous vir-
tual worlds or the chat rooms of the 1990s, social network site profiles are signifiers
for identifiable bodied beings (Davis 2010). Curatorial practices are normatively and
architecturally limited to the extent that profiled content portrays someone recogniz-
able to the actor’s networks.
Failure to adhere to norms of accuracy can result in varying levels of social
sanction. Toma, Hancock, and Ellison (2008) find that among users of online dating
sites, the revelation of large discrepancies between the profiled presentation and the
bodied being (e.g., vastly different body type, misrepresentation of employment)
become “deal breakers”—leading to immediate romantic rejection of the guilty
party. Similarly, Marwick and boyd (2011) show how Twitter users chide fellow
Triangulating the Self 509
… [A]t one time I had almost 2000 friends but some of those people I’d only
met once … and we weren’t really friends so it seemed really inauthentic … For
someone who is really active with a lot of friends, it’s like they are trying to be
popular … an average person with 2000 friends? That seems a little suspect or
desperate … Like you’re back in high school and you’re trying too hard to be
liked.
Many social network sites reinforce norms of accuracy through their architec-
tures. Davis (2010), for example, shows how MySpace guides users by providing
templated categories with which to share biographic and demographic infor-
mation. Similar architectures can be found on Friendster, Facebook, Linkedin,
Academia.edu, and Google+ (among others). More explicitly, platforms enforce
accuracy through their Terms of Service (ToS). Facebook and Google+, for example,
both require users to display “real” names, making users searchable and promoting
“real-world” self-representations. Failure to comply, though an option employed by
some (Lim et al. 2012; Raynes-Goldie 2010), can result in termination of the user’s
account.
The norm of accuracy is accentuated by the increasingly linked nature of social
media—much of which centralizes on Facebook. For example, a Foursquare check
in, news story “Like,” Twitter “Tweet,” or blog post “Share” can become part of
a Facebook News Feed. This content can be updated, checked, and commented
upon through home computers, laptops, desktops, and mobile devices. This means
that actions recorded in one arena can be broadcast in multiple arenas to multiple
audiences. This provides networked individuals with significant opportunities to
display the ideal self. However, performative consistency throughout interaction
platforms—both online and offline—is necessary to maintain authenticity.
The social integration of accurate documentation is perhaps epitomized with
recent developments in frictionless sharing. Frictionless sharing applications auto-
matically share user data across social networks, usually via the Facebook News
Feed and/or Twitter. The music-based platform Spotify, for example, displays user
play lists and current listening practices; the Washington Post Social Readers dis-
plays which news stories the user clicks; and Nike+ shares fitness accomplishments.
Although most of these applications are “opt-in,” their increasing presence works to
integrate frictionless sharing tools into the social repertoires of networked publics.
More generally, this contributes to a form of sociality in which documentation is a key
510 Symbolic Interaction Volume 37, Number 4, 2014
With constant ability to connect and share I find people are continuously thinking
about what their next post will be.
And Diane (female, 36, text-based exchange) talks about the disappointing expe-
rience of an accidentally unrecorded workout:
… I use Nike iRun and it syncs to both my Twitter and Facebook … I have been
concerned about annoying people if I ran all the time … but I remember this one
time, it didn’t seem to track me and it really upset me I was like wtf [what the
fuck?] why do I run with this damn thing on my shoe if it doesn’t work?
[My Facebook Friend] posts every five seconds. EVERY. FIVE. SECONDS [hand
slapping table with each word]. It’s like NO, FUCK NO, stop spamming my wall.
Do you just sit there all day thinking of things to post on Facebook? … I had to
hide him. Seriously, like I HAD to hide him.
Indeed, research shows that perceived overposting can lead to deleted connec-
tions, as abundant individual sharing monopolizes the collective social sharing space
and reflects poorly on the offending individual’s character (Sibona and Walczak
2011).
Documentation practices and accurate representation are therefore delicate
accomplishments in a networked era. Accomplishing the ideal-authentic balance
entails truthful, careful, strategic sharing, but not too much, and without visible
effort.
… I have different groups of friends, some who I would say get along and can
co-mingle, others that would absolutely despise each other. So, that means on
Facebook if you interact with both groups using the same social media there is
bound to be some crossover.
Moreover, SNSs allow these others to publicly contribute to the actor’s profiled
content (boyd and Ellison 2007; McMillan and Morrison 2006; Subrahmanyam et al.
2008). As such, online profiles are collaborations or co-constructions (Donath and
boyd 2004). A key feature of the SNS is a public wall, upon which members of the
actor’s (diverse) network can post. In addition, users can tag one another in pho-
tographs, conversation threads, and videos—all of which become available for public
consumption and comment. Facebook displays these interactions on the profile itself,
and also broadcasts them to an actor’s social network via the News Feed.
Public communications, initiated by others, become an important part of the pro-
filed self. These communications grant insight into otherwise inaccessible relations.
They provide a seemingly natural (and arguably voyeuristic) peek into dyadic or
small group dynamics. They offer an ostensibly more “objective” perspective against
which the actor’s own self-representations can be compared. In line with this lat-
ter point, Walther’s Warranting Principle posits that people give greater credence to
other-generated content (OGC) than self-generated content (Walther et al. 2009). In
Goffmanian terms, OGC becomes part of the impression “given off,” as opposed to
that which is “given” (Goffman 1959). This was troublesome for many participants.
Jake (male, 26, text-based exchange) complains:
One friend of mine posts comic book drawings of female super heroes with big
boobs to my and others’ pages and it’s just stupid and sexually childish … my
family is on there.
Certainly, users can (and at times, do) circumvent context collapse and OGC.
Hogan (2010) suggests the lowest common denominator approach in which users
limit shared content to that which will be appropriate for every member of the
network. Others skillfully navigate the architecture itself through privacy settings
and user-tools (Marwick and Ellison 2012; Stutzman, Capra, and Thompson 2011).
Still others go around the system, creating aliases and Fakebooks—both of which
go against Facebook and Google+ ToS (Lim et al. 2012; Raynes-Goldie 2010).
Hailey (female, 27, FtF interview), for example, makes a series of “block” lists so
512 Symbolic Interaction Volume 37, Number 4, 2014
that she can easily exclude certain portions of her network from posts that she deems
inappropriate:
And Tricia (female, 28, text-based exchange) posts a “scrubbed” image of herself,
showing only the “outer layer.” She posts and allows only “benign pictures” and
deletes “inflammatory or sexual” OGC out of a reported concern for the opinions of
“friends, family, and employers.”
Context collapse, coupled with OGC, however, is the default state. Each circum-
vention technique comes at a cost. Hogan’s (2010) lowest common denominator
approach limits the information one can share to a relatively superficial level, dimin-
ishing opportunities to perform an ideal self. Deft use of privacy settings and archi-
tecturally available re-segmentation tools require time, skill, and knowledge, not
available to all. Skirting official rules places the actor in the precarious position of
risking expulsion from participation altogether. Finally, the sheer effort entailed in
some of these curatorial techniques may threaten authenticity, as the performance
becomes an explicitly laborious accomplishment (Davis 2012b).
In sum, these three factors (online/offline fluidity, expectations of accuracy, and
collapsed network walls)—exacerbated by increasing and strategic documentation
—present unique challenges for selfing processes within a networked era. Networked
individuals engage social life both physically and digitally and present presumably
accurate depictions to broad and diverse audiences; in turn, these audiences can pub-
licly negotiate and add to each other’s profiled content. In what follows, I argue that
networked individuals manage this environment through self-triangulation.
Networked Logic
On a recent weekend, several of my family members came for a visit. Moments
before they arrived, I spruced up my appearance with a pair of earrings and dash
of blush. There would, I knew, be pictures. And I would, I knew, post these pictures
Triangulating the Self 513
on Facebook. Within a networked era, the logic of everyday life comes to incorpo-
rate an expanding corpus of media through and on which action and interaction take
place. Networked logic refers to networked individuals’ seamless incorporation of
these multiple media into performative practices. This is largely implicit, affecting
selfing processes in unconscious ways.
Networked logic flows both from digital to physical and physical to digital. I sep-
arate these out for analytic purposes, though in practice, this flow is often simultane-
ous. The following quotes describe the movement from physical to digital, as offline
moments become potentially shared content.
Often, when out or about, I’ll try to come up with the perfect funny status. Or
when someone says something funny, I’ll say, “Oh, I totally need to put that on
FB!” I once had what I considered to be four unbelievably funny things to make
statuses out of, but I didn’t want to dump them all in one day in case people didn’t
see all four. So I wrote them down on post-it notes, and put one up each day for
four days. (Nicole, female, 32, text-based exchange)
I often find myself surprised to be at a social gathering and have somebody say
something and the response is “That’s going on Twitter/Facebook.” I hear it so
much more often when somebody has their picture taken. “New profile pic!”
somebody will proclaim. (Lawrence, male, 30, text-based exchange)
It’s like that whole thing, if you don’t post about it on Facebook, it didn’t happen.
If there isn’t a picture, you weren’t there. So people think about these things, they
bring their phones [pulls out phone and makes a mock nonchalant face and pre-
tends to take a picture of herself] and are like “Oh, Facebook update!!” and then
they just wait for the comments to come in. Like we were at this dance party and
these girls were just like lined up at the bar taking pictures of themselves to put
on Facebook, like that was their big priority [laughs, rolls eyes]. (Fran, female, 22,
FtF interview)
take up too much space (via perceived overposting) are often sanctioned through the
“hide” function or disconnection (i.e., “unfriending”) (Sibona and Walczak 2011).
Networked logic, of course, flows not only from physical to digital but also from
digital to physical. As shown in the quotes below, digitally shared content—both
existing content and potential content—can translate into offline behaviors. This
rests heavily on the technologically facilitated norms of persistent documentation
by self and others.
I have a running app that I started using to log how long I walk—the idea being, if
all of my friends see it, and then see me slack off on that walking, they will shame
and judge me until I pick it back up.
Temporality plays a key role here, as past performances inform present ones, and
present performances act as both potential futures and potential pasts (Jurgenson
2011). For Lawrence, tracking his present fitness behaviors produces a past record
that facilitates the future identity claim of physical fitness, enhancing the likelihood of
behavior in accordance with this identity claim (i.e., engagement in physical activity).
Similarly, Brittany decides how to look when going out with the understanding that
her present appearance will, in the future, become a documented past. This latter
example highlights the co-constructed nature of identity in a networked era. Brittany
recognizes that even if she does not post photos of an event, others may very well put
images of her online, and these images will become part of her profiled referent.
Finally, despite the prevalence of discourses that paint mediated communication
as necessarily less real than FtF interaction (e.g., Marche 2012; Turkle 2011), par-
ticipants in many ways seem to shift in the opposite direction. In particular, many
participants express the notion that if one does not post something online, it does
not “count,” making digital documentation a key criterion of verifiability. This makes
Triangulating the Self 515
Preemptive Action
Broadly, preemptive action is defined as the purposive performative decision to
engage in some act within one arena primarily as a means to support performances
in other arenas. It is a proactive practice of identity construction and maintenance.
Certainly, this predates the Internet. For example, one might be motivated to attend
a concert in order to obtain and publicly wear a band T-shirt. A networked era is
unique, however, in the actor’s opportunity to perform more purposefully, coupled
with the challenge of gearing performances toward vast, overlapping, largely invisible
audiences. Far from fleeting, these performances produce permanent artifacts with
the capacity to linger and spread. These artifacts, consisting of text, images, tagged
connections, and geo-locational check-ins, show audiences a great deal about users’
tastes, networks, and personalities (Zhao, Grasmuck, and Martin 2008).
As such, preemptive action in the present work refers specifically to offline enact-
ments for the purpose of digital documentation and digitally mediated exhibitions
(Hogan 2010) that facilitate future offline identity performances. Preemptive action
is an important performative tool in maintaining the ideal-authentic balance, as it
locates networked individuals in a position to document, and be documented, in ways
that “gives off” (Goffman 1959) impressions through curating behavior, rather than
curating content. And yet, due to the purposiveness of it, the revelation of preemp-
tive action bears significant authenticity threats.
Early in the study, I developed a “hunch” that people engaged in preemptive
action. This stemmed from participants’ insights about others, and from my own
social media practices. For instance, I am admittedly motivated to seek out inter-
esting popular media articles because I want to share them on Twitter. And yet,
through self-report, participants did not articulate such purposive performance tac-
tics in themselves.
Self-report is an important tool in identifying and analyzing experiential narra-
tives. Methodologically, however, self-report exhibits two related weaknesses. First,
participants may not wish to share certain information about themselves, especially
when doing so may cast them in a negative light (Edwards 1957; Hyman 1994;
516 Symbolic Interaction Volume 37, Number 4, 2014
Tourangeau and Yan 2007). Second, participants may be unaware of their own
attitudes or motivations. A wealth of research shows that despite significant holes in
self-knowledge, people readily construct narratives as though their self-knowledge
were complete (see Nisbett and Wilson 1977). Participants in the present study are
particularly susceptible to both of these methodological weaknesses. Selfing pro-
cesses are often taken for granted (Goffman 1959), and may be unavailable for easy
cognitive retrieval. Moreover, the articulation of selfing processes—especially those
as effortful as preemptive action—threaten deeply embedded values of authenticity
(Davis 2012b; Erickson 1995; Goffman 1959; Marwick and boyd 2011).
Projective techniques are one means by which researchers can circumvent the
weaknesses of self-report. Projection, as classically described by Freudian psycho-
analytic theory, is a defense mechanism by which people reduce anxiety and guilt
surrounding undesirable, usually unconscious, impulses and desires (Freud [1918]
1998). In an effort to elicit responses that participants may be unwilling or unable
to share, researchers can ask questions in a way that allows participants to project
their troublesome attitudes or desires onto an external stimuli (Kassarjian 1974).
A particularly useful variant of projective techniques is known as Most People
Projective Questioning (MPPQ) (Ostapczuk and Musch 2011). These ask respon-
dents about “most people’s” attitudes/desires/behaviors and so on, reducing both
participants’ anxiety about undesirable impulses and efforts to appear in a positive
light.
I therefore engaged in MPPQ techniques along with direct self-report questioning.
I found that although people do not (for the most part) report that they are pur-
poseful in their self-presentations, they believe that others are. In short, they show
a discrepancy between what they do and what everyone else does. This gap between
what I do and what others do is theoretically rich. It shows not only that preemptive
action is likely going on but also that this is a practice that social actors hide from
themselves.
Unsurprisingly, when asked directly about themselves and the extent to which
they, if at all, engage in preemptive action, participants responded with emphatic and
ubiquitous denial. More specifically, I received the following representative (often
quite succinct) replies:
I know I don’t. Facebook doesn’t control that much of my life to the extent that
I would actually revolve my life around what may or may not end up online …
(Alison, female, 29, text-based exchange)
Oh GOD no!! [wrinkles face, shakes head, moves backwards] That is just sad.
(Katrina, female, 22, FtF interview)
No!! I like the idea of Facebook and Twitter being real. No point in doing stuff
just for the status update. (Michael, male, 31, text-based exchange)
When asked about the habits and practices of others, however, responses were far
more varied.
Triangulating the Self 517
In response to whether others engage in offline behaviors for the sake of digital
documentation, Kathy (female, 20) and Christina (female, 22) (FtF group interview)
simultaneously exclaim:
It’s really sad but I totally know a guy who does this. He even kind of admits it.
Like he said that he sees other people’s Facebook posts and they are doing all of
these really great things, so he feels like, I have to go to these parks, and ride these
trails, and travel so that I can keep up. And of course he has to post about it or it
doesn’t count.
Sometimes you see status updates that are clearly meant to get attention … I have
these relatives they care a lot about money and what people think. Sometimes
they do things to be seen, I know they do that because they make a HUGE deal
about seeing some person that’s supposed to be important or have a lot of money
and so, it would absolutely not surprise me if they did something for the purpose
of posting on Facebook that they went somewhere or saw something … : I think
it’s silly. If you didn’t want to do it in the first place, why did Facebook change
your mind? (Lindsay)
I … know someone who works really hard to show how racially diverse she is …
she works really hard to setup an image where she has some legitimacy in black
culture. I think she also works really hard to post pics or check in to black events.
(Dianne)
I do know a couple of people from “outside” [of my close network of friends] who
definitely enjoy doing certain things in part because of the satisfaction or positive
reinforcement they get from posting it on Facebook—one girl puts a note up for
every time she compliments a random stranger and “makes their day,” which is
great and all, but I can’t help but think she only does it to report it online. (Jamie)
“contrived and exhausting way to live life.” Similarly, Jamie, in her quote above,
describes this kind of behavior as “sad” and “hopes” that none of her close friends
do it, while Lindsay thinks her family members are “silly” for allowing Facebook to
alter their courses of action.
This gap between perception of self and perception of others is theoretically
important and highlights several things. First, it illuminates the tension within selfing
processes between performativity and the moral imperative of authenticity—or the
necessity of hiding performative efforts from others and from the self (Goffman
1955; Hochschild 1983; Trilling 1972). Participants do not simply deny their own
performativity, but do so out of the social and psychic needs of identity maintenance.
Further, in articulating the reprehensible preemptive action of others, participants
reinforce a moral order in which actors ought not try to be anything, but rather, to
engage as their “True Selves.” Indeed, the mere potential to engage in preemptive
action becomes an important discursive tool; an alter against which participants
define the self in accomplishing an ideal-authentic balance.
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