In WeChat Moments: You are actually an actor
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Goffman, a famous American sociologist, believes that life is a play, society is a big stage, and social members as performers are eager to create an image that can be accepted by the audience, so everyone is trying their best to perform on the stage of social life. Compared with the openness of personal content in other social media, most of the communication in WeChat Moments occurs between "acquaintances", so the "image" established by users in it will more directly affect others' views of themselves in real life. Crew and audience: a binary relationship in interaction Goffman believes that a complete performance process must include two roles: performer and audience. According to Goffman's theory, performers can be individuals or "crews". Generally speaking, performers in Moments are individual individuals, but "crews" may sometimes appear in the comment column. In addition to performers, other participants are audiences. According to the degree of participation, we can divide audiences into active audiences and passive audiences. Active audiences will leave their own comments under the works they are interested in, and may interact with the author of the content or other audiences. This interaction means that the audience is eager to communicate with the author or other audiences based on the content of the article. In addition, forwarding actors' articles is also an important form for active audiences to cooperate with actors' performances. The magic of "Like": the activeness of passive audiences In traditional social networking sites, active audiences will express their feelings after seeing the performance content, and the form of feelings is to leave messages, while passive audiences only browse and do not reply. However, after the function of "Like" on WeChat is maximized, passive audiences also have a tendency to become active. So when an actor posts a content that he is not very interested in, the originally passive audience can use "Like" instead. The magic of "Like" is that you don't have to interact with the actor, so you don't have to discuss the content you are not interested in. Passive audiences who do not like or leave messages will not leave any traces after watching the performance, but it is worth noting that this does not mean that passive audiences who do not reply will not be affected by the performance. "Impression management": the starting point of all performances Goffman believes that "in interpersonal interaction, no matter what the individual's specific goals are, his interest is always to control the behavior of others, especially to control others' reactions to him." This is the so-called "impression management." Goffman believes that performances are designed intentionally or unintentionally to create an impression of "who we are" for others, which is an idealized "self". In WeChat, actors' performances are divided into four modes: 1. Idealized performance. This is the most common performance mode, and the characteristic of this mode is to focus on showing one's idealized image. Before publishing content, we will consider what we want to publish, and secretly evaluate whether this content can be affirmed by the audience or whether it will be ridiculed by some people. The completion of the publication of the main content does not mean the end of the idealized performance. Due to the principle of WeChat that non-friends cannot see comments, no one except the person knows how many comments the message has received. Therefore, "what is the mentality of those who like it" or "thank you for liking it" are all the publishers proving that many people like this WeChat; 2. Misunderstanding performance. The purpose of this performance is to create an illusion in the audience. For example, in order to gain respect, a person who originally has an empty mind pretends to be very knowledgeable in the circle of friends, and a person who is not rich originally shows off his luxury items or "high-end life"; 3. Mystification performance. Keeping a certain distance from the interacting party and making the other party feel a sense of reverence is called "mystification performance". Some "acquaintances" on WeChat prefer to post content that is incomprehensible or difficult to understand, in order to separate themselves from the majority of people on WeChat. This is done to make the audience feel "strange" to the actor; 4. Remedial performance. The actor may put the embarrassment caused outside the circle of friends into the circle of friends, and actively express this embarrassing behavior on WeChat, but this expression is modified to make people feel "cute". The emergence of "embarrassment": the mask is unveiled Goffman believes that the interaction between people is each person performing "I", not the real "I", but the disguised "I". There are two situations of losing "face": one is that the audience breaks into the backstage; the other is that the performance is seen by the "non-target audience". 1. The audience breaks into the backstage. The front stage is the stage part where individuals perform in a general and fixed way and set specific scenes for the audience; the backstage is the occasion to prepare for the front stage performance and cover up things that cannot be performed on the front stage. Backstage, people can relax and rest, but once the front stage audience mistakenly breaks into the backstage, the actor's unbearable side will be exposed. When actors perform, the content they post is often modified, beautified, or even distorted. However, if someone in the audience sees this beautification and points out this modification or distortion very straightforwardly, the actor will be severely hit. When a user posts a piece of information that is not true in Moments, he is likely to see critical comments from friends who know the "background details" and have a straightforward personality in the comments. At this time, embarrassment is inevitable. 2. The performance is seen by "non-target audiences". WeChat Moments has a "visible range" function. When users post content, they can set it so that certain friends cannot see the information. But if this information is seen by them through other channels, then "embarrassing" situations will occur. My friend C once told me about her experience: In this story, A and B are lovers, and C is their mutual friend in WeChat Moments. One day, C accidentally told B about A's posting of a bar in WeChat Moments one day, but B didn't know about it at all. B realized that her boyfriend A had set a content block for her, and A lied that he was working overtime that day. After that, a breakup storm between B and her boyfriend began. Here, A wanted to establish the impression that he had a colorful nightlife among all his friends except his girlfriend B, so he excluded his girlfriend from the audience. But he didn't expect that someone in the target audience would reveal the content of the performance to non-target audiences. When we lose face, we become embarrassed. So, when these "embarrassments" happen, we have to use new "face-work" to maintain the integrity of our face. As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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