Humans are incredibly talented performers, don’t you think?
You wake up, brush your teeth, make your breakfast, go to school or work and ⊹₊⟡⋆‘showtime’⊹₊⟡⋆
It is an interesting phenomenon; this shift in personality when you are alone and when you are surrounded by other people. Sociologist Erving Goffman calls this performance: the idea that all public interactions are comparable to a theatrical act in which the individual gives meaning to themselves, others, and their situation.1 While Goffman’s insights are mainly about public interaction, they can be considered within a digital context as well.
In social situations, you might act differently towards your parents, your friends, or your professors/boss. It is not necessarily bad. It is only proper to adjust to your environment so that all actors are on the same line. It would not be professional to talk to your higher-ups so casually, and it would be seen as conventional if you address your parents as “Miss/Missus” or “Mister”. (It would be fun to play with this idea, though)
In the context of digital technology, however, the intended audience to address is less predictable. Sure, you are likely to interact more with friends and family, but there a thousands of other people roaming the same digital platform. It is only a matter of the algorithm that chooses who sees whom. This unpredictable ‘eye looking over your shoulder’ makes you (un)consciously aware that you are being watched, creating The Hawthorne Effect 2 in which individuals change an aspect of their behaviour when this feeling occurs.
It is interesting to consider that you can not be socially engaged with both your physical environment as well as your digital environment. At least, not me and not in the same amount of presence. If it did happen, I am wondering which role you are performing when you are interacting with different kinds of social environments? I myself find myself in an awkward situation whenever I am in the same room as my parents and my friends. My parents know things my friends do not, and my friends know things my parents do not. Call it an identity crisis if you will.
Another thing I would like to discuss is how social media, in particular, feels like a battlefield of agency. Who decides what?
Are you in control of what you are seeing and with what you are interacting with, or is it the algorithm?
How much is in your control and how much in that of those seemingly mysterious digital technologies? Think of fashion trends. Do the upcoming fashion trends exist because of the media or because of social factors in the real world? Is it a chicken and the egg story?
What about reading? Lately, ‘performative reading’ has been circulating in the media and in public. I believe that it was first a thing on social media. Reading as a status symbol rather than the actual activity. Buying books because of their covers or because you have seen others reading them, so of course, you have to read them now, too. FOMO? What is that?
As far as I am aware, reading is mainly a female activity, especially regarding the whole BookTok or Bookstagram hype. However, man seems to have noticed this too, and now their brains have come up with this plan to attract women. Enter ‘The Performative Male’. It is not the weightlifting alpha man, but rather the performative male is someone who wears loose shirts, carries a tote bag, and drinks his matcha while reading literary books.3 And so something that has started in the digital realm has entered or shaped the physical world. There were even ‘Performative Male’ contests! In my opinion, it is a fun, quite innocent and provocative joke.
Finally, I want to conclude by elaborating on an article I had written on Substack: ‘To All the Roles I Never Got to Play’. In it, I write about Asian representation in the Western media and, more importantly, how few leading non-stereotypical Asian roles there are. Because of this, I have obscured those parts of me. Somewhat ashamed to acknowledge them because I did not feel represented, nor fully resonated with the view that was presented in Western media. It is like looking in the mirror but feeling alienated by what is in front of you.
On the bright side, since I started my own Bookstagram (a niche corner on Instagram for booklovers), I came into contact with Asian-American authors who helped me to embrace that side of me. My bio now proudly states that I am a Dutch-Chinese booknerd. Because authors and publishing companies are trying to reach and include more marginalised communities, this partly helps me stand out from all the other readers. There is still a long way to go, but we are getting there!
With all these roles you might perform to the outside world, which can feel exhausting, I want to leave you with a poem I have written:
(Feel free to comment if you are confused.)
They try to push me into a specific corner
Try to mould me into another soldier
With promises to fill my head and relentless dreams
But I can not accept playing into their schemes
For I resent perfection that should be me
And mournfully bury the girl that I used to be
For I am here, only in the now
Living in a city far away from my hometown.
With nothing more than what I can give
My heart, my soul, my will to live.
────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────
Resources
- Crossman, Ashley. “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.” ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-3026754 (accessed October 19, 2025). ↩︎
- Sackett Catalogue of Bias Collaboration, Spencer EA, Mahtani K, Hawthorne effect. In: Catalogue Of Bias 2017: https://catalogofbias.org/biases/hawthorne-effect/ ↩︎
- James Factora, “The Viral ‘Performative Male’ Meme Trend Shows Us That Everyone Wants to Break Free From Gender Roles,” Them, August 15, 2025, https://www.them.us/performative-male-trend-heteropessimism. ↩︎
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