Deciphering Goffman's Dramaturgical Analysis as Portrayed in Generation Like

After reading about Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis and watching Generation Like, I found the concept of Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis to be really interesting and even somewhat confusing. As an actor myself, I’ve always believed that theater possibly reflects real life, but I was completely taken aback by Goffman’s concept that real life is actually theater. It was quite a bit to wrap my head around. That aside, Generation Like did a great job of exemplifying the ideas covered in Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis. The entire video seemed to cover identity, especially though social media. The documentary followed the lives of people who are trying present who they “really” are through what they post, like, and interact with on social media. For example, Ian Somerhalder would have his company post pictures of him with his dogs on a social media site, and that could be to show his fans that he has a love for animals. It is taking a part of himself and presenting it through his content. It was interesting in the film to see that there are now companies that are for impression management; companies that pretty much are personal marketing companies for individuals. Also, I would say that social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram are all impression management tools. Region management definitely applies to all people with an online persona or presence. Very rarely do people post negative things about themselves on social media, unless it’s secretly for some sort of backwards martyr praise. Of course on social media, people, especially young teens, are only going to post things that make them look good, because they want to be liked. Or for example, Tyler Oakley appears to only post videos about things he likes; he’s built his entire brand on videos about things he likes and that is very front stage. Back stage would be the other parts of his life he chooses to keep from the camera. The documentary followed a lot of the positive outcomes of social media presence, but it actually didn’t touch upon spoiled performances or tacts really. I guess spoiled performances are what online personas hope will never happen to them because then they would lose followers, likes, and an audience; therefore, they would have to come up with some tacts to recover. Or alternatively, they could chose to plan a spoiled performance as a publicity stunt. At least from the examples they showed in the film, none of the people dealt with cynical performance, but instead pushed the societal standards they did hold even more, but you might be able to argue that sometimes a person could lie about their feelings on a product just to get an endorsement and money from it. That could be considered a cynical performance. The film also didn’t cover much for civil inattention, but instead showed the positives of the opposite, through how YouTubers would collaborate to share audience bases and both get more followers as a result.

As I mentioned before, in an online community we always want to show the best version of ourselves. We do that by posting only the most flattering pictures, the best foods we ate, the wonderful awards we won, the most important social event of the year etc. We pick and choose what to show in our front stage and keep anything that could be considered a flaw or imperfection in the back stage. Also as I wrote before, I did not think there were any apparent examples of spoiled or cynical performances in the film.

One example of “performing” identity through social media from the film is Tyler Oakley, who literally portrays himself through the videos he posts of himself on YouTube. Depending on a person’s social media site of choice, their performance could be crafted a little differently. Nowadays, online personas have multiple social media accounts and they craft their performance to fit all of them. That could mean Tyler posts a video of his favorite books, then he tweets about them, and takes a photo with them next to a cup of coffee and posts it to Instagram. It’s all about knowing the audience for each of the sites and catering to them. An interesting example from the film and front stage vs. back stage is the young boy who posted skateboarding and joke videos. For him, he posted videos of skateboarding and then all the funny things he liked to do to get views, but he chose (as far as I’m aware) not to be so open about his living situation and the poverty his family is in. I’m sure he chose to do so because he doesn’t want his audience to think he’s just trying to make money or that he isn’t cool anymore because he is from a low income family and neighborhood. Plus, viewers don’t necessarily want to be burdened with the reality of other people’s problems because they have their own problems they need to worry about. Additionally, the goal for many people is to post things that will bring in an audience and make money; the realities of boring life aren’t really money makers.

Again, as I mentioned before, an example of cynical performances could be when a YouTuber promotes a brand, but may not stand behind it, but does so just to obtain money. They are utilizing their performance for self-gain, even if they don’t believe in it entirely. You could also say that the young skater boy’s joke videos are spoiled performances in that he embarrasses himself for views, but ultimately he probably isn’t embarrassed by it since he is making money. Civil inattention could be exemplified through the Hunger Games fangirl trying to reach out to the actors of the series and usually being ignored by them. Occasionally, as we see, she got a response.

As we saw in the young Hispanic girl in the film, women/girls do craft their personal performances differently than men or boys do. We saw her mother explain that when full body pictures are posted on Instagram, she gets more likes. The subtext of the situation is most likely that girls/women can and do use their physical appearances and bodies to get attention. It’s the sad truth that women can’t just be funny or smart, they also have to have their bodies become part of the equation.

Overall, I completely think that Goffman’s theory holds weight regarding how we interact with social media. It explains why people act the way they do online and why people feel pressured to always be perfect online. Personally, I’ve tried by best to have my social media “self” be a relatively true reflection of myself, because that is the human goal; to be understood and noticed through social media. I will admit though, that I don’t post on social media very often, but when I do, you better bet that I am going to try to put my best foot forward.

Works Cited

1. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.
2. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harper & Row.
3. Hearn, A., & Schoenhoff, S. (2016). Impression management: Online and offline. Routledge.
4. Lee, C. C. (2019). The drama of social media: The relationship between social media use and impression management. Computers in Human Behavior, 92, 126-136.
5. Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). To see and be seen: Celebrity practice on Twitter. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 17(2), 139-158.
6. McRae, K. (2015). A social psychological perspective on impression management in social media: The importance of impression management tactics. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 5(4), 37-43.
7. Senft, T. M. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks. Peter Lang Publishing.
8. Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321-326.
9. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books.
10. van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford University Press.