Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Life As An Actor


This week my blog post is a response to a posting by Alexandra. This is the link to her post! 


Goffman's reading on "life as an actor" made me realise that we undoubtedly create numerous faces for ourselves, each one aimed at impressing a different audience. It seems almost fair to say that our life is an ongoing performance and we control the way in which are perceived. Charles Horton Cooley called this the "looking-glass self":

"I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am."

In response to Alexandra's blog post, Facebook is indeed the very best example of how we are all actors in our own social worlds. We only post what we want people to see. We delete things that may portray us as uncool, ugly, boring or fat. The majority of Facebook pages that you come across are exploding with vain selfies, new relationship status updates, and countless check-ins. Facebook has changed the way we interact with others - there is no longer the need to call your friends and ask them what they did on the weekend, who they were with, or what they were wearing. You can find all this information on Facebook. I think Facebook's "status update" option says it all..  

I agree with Alexandra – Facebook is a front stage interaction that we utilize to create a “profile” of ourselves, projecting a positive image to maintain our social status.

We are all performers, and Goffman's reading covers this perfectly.      

No comments:

Post a Comment