Goffman- The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Understanding Goffman’s Theory
Goffman analyses interaction and how individuals perform to project a certain image that they perceive to be desirable, and using the theatre to illustrate the contrasts in front stage and back stage behaviour (Bullingham and Vasconcelos, 2013). Most individuals will portray themselves their ‘front-stage’ persona in a certain manner when the cameras are on them and they have the attention of an audience as a method to appeal to as large a demographic. Away from the public and with their loved ones they may be less over-expressive and more reserved their ‘back-stage’ persona. the theory of how we present ourselves differently in different situations and amongst different people, could be explained as using masks. The ability to change how we are seen online via a social media through our actions, words, likes and dislikes can be seen as a performance. I will now analyse James preservation of self through the different ways in which he portrays himself across his social media platforms YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.
James’ Preservation of self
‘Front stage’ Persona
‘Front Stage’ James is a trendy business professional who expresses himself through makeup, James’s outgoing personality shines through in his presentation of self. He portrays a very Bold and confident persona always polished in his YouTube video. However his backstage persona is very much goofy and it is then he really lets down is guard and is really vulnerable. These Two stages has contributed to many of the successes as well as downfalls during James Career.
From my analysis, I would identify James Charles front stage contains traits like, charisma and Confidence. James Charles ‘front of stage’ persona can be interpreted by his audience through his professional career as a makeup artist and entrepreneur of his makeup and clothing brand. Confident and straight forward, James has a unique approach to how he carries himself. Being more mindful of the way he speaks and what kind of message his makeup video will send he is well organized and polished in the type of quality he produces. All of James’ videos are shot using his very expensive and high quality studio setup. Each look is planned strategically It is not uncommon for a beauty influencer to display these characteristics but James displays a high level of professionalism through his video and post. Even in photos why James shows his true self for instance in photos where he’s eating pizza or chilling out at home they are always presented as high quality images. The idea of a performance presents and idealised version of a situation (Goffman, 1959).
In Goffman’s own words, “it will be convenient to label as ‘front’ that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance.” What that means is that the front is like a stage.
He then goes on to split this into three further aspects:
- Setting — these are the fixed elements of the front: the physical layout of a room, the props we might use (Squirrell, nodate). For James his setting in his front stage is his 7 million home The nearly 10,000 sq. ft. house also offers six bedrooms, and his in home studio where he shoots his videos. by putting his studio in the house he is combining his front stage and back stage person.
- Appearance — these are the things that follow you around, the fixed characteristics that we can’t change (much or easily). They’re things like age, race, gender, the clothes we wear and the items we carry with us. James appearance is evident in his sense of style, which is very gender fluid in that he wears dresses, skirts, crop tops and is almost always wearing a full face of make-up. (Squirrell, nodate)
3. Manner — these properties are more transient. They comprise our attitude towards our setting and performance: our facial expressions, our air of confidence or humility, our general demeanour. Goffman calls manner “those stimuli which function at the time to warn us of the interaction role the performer will expect to play in the oncoming situation” (Squirrell, nodate). James is very expressive in the way that he carried himself, he uses many hand gestures when he speaks and is very flamboyant in they way that he carries himself. He has a big personality and shows much of a diva persona. He’s known for his expressions ‘HEY SISTERS’ and ‘OKURRT’ which he uses often when he speaks.
Audience perception of James Charles ‘Front stage’
James refers to his fan base as ‘sisters’ hence, his famous greeting hey sisters! The ‘Sister’s perspective of James Charles in the Front stage is fairly positive I have taken comments from his fan base on his social platforms to show this interaction and how they themselves perceive his front stage persona.
From these user comments his audience claims that James is doing a really good job and this is a clear indication of how they support him and how they feel about his front stage persona.
Back stage Persona
James Charles Back stage persona is not who he perceives him self to be in his front stage. He’s like the boy next door behind the screen he seems so innocent and you would love to believe that his intentions are genuine. However James has many mask which can been seen in the numerous scandels that he has experienced throughout his career. Many of his back stage persona is seen through his social media post from instagram and twitter when the camera is off then we get to see his ‘back stage’ self.
After James posted an offensive tweet about Ebola while on a class trip to South Africa he received many backlash from fans on twitter which could have cost him is opportunity to be the face of CoverGirl.
The 17-year-old aspiring makeup artist, who was named CoverGirl’s first male ambassador last year, enraged Twitter on Thursday when he tweeted, “‘I can’t believe we’re going to Africa today omg what if we get Ebola?’ ‘James we’re fine we could’ve gotten it at chipotle last year.’”
Instead of issuing a sincere apology James began to defend himself and also blocked many followers who attempted to call him out for his inappropriate behaviour.
Several hours later, James deleted all the tweets, and issued his first apology via Twitter, writing, “I am extremely sorry. Regardless of my intentions, words have consequences. I take full responsibility and will learn to do better.”
But Twitter users were not satisfied.
James also went on to issue another apology but users did not take to kindly to it either. insinuating that he new batter and only apologised of fear that his opportunity with CoverGirl might be taken away from him after twitter users claimed they would boycott CoverGirl if James’ opportunity was not revoked.
Through this we are able to see another side of James that we would not have seen behind the camera as his video are more polished and throughout. Goffman says that, yes, our performances can be cynical. We don’t have to believe in, or be invested in, the role which we play. We can act purely as a means to another end — and it might well be for self-gain, as in the case of the lawyer who acts tough in arbitration to strike a better deal. At the other end of the spectrum, there are performances which are completely sincere. We can be completely invested in our act, believing it to be a genuine expression of our identity with no fabrication or exaggeration involved. (Squirrell, 2020)
Bibliography
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Bullingham,L., Vasconcelos, A.C. (2013). ‘‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities’. Journal of Information Science. Volume 39(issue 1) pp.101–112. . [Accessed on 10th of January 2021 ] https://journals-sagepub com.mmu.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1177/0165551512470051?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider <%22>
McClain,James. (2020). ‘James Charles Buys $7 Million L.A. Starter Home’. DIRT.com. [online] 14th of February. [online] [Accessed on 10th of January 2021] https://www.dirt.com/entertainers/influencers/james-charles-house-encino-1203311254/ <%22>
Chung, Madelyn (2017). ‘CoverGirl Ambassador James Charles Apologizes for Racist Ebola Tweet’. Fashion.com. . [online] 17th of February. [online] [Accessed on 11th of January 2021]
https://fashionmagazine.com/face-body/james-charles-ebola-tweet/
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https://www.thoughtco.com/erving-goffman-3026489
James Charles @jamescharles. (2017). ‘No Title’. 16th of February. [online] [Accessed on 12th of January 2021].
https://twitter.com/jamescharles/status/832343350850310144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E832343350850310144%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fjamescharles%2Fstatus%2F8323433508503101443Fref_src3Dtwsrc255Etfw257Ctwcamp255Etweetembed257Ctwterm255E832343350850310144257Ctwgr255E257Ctwcon255Es1_26ref_url3Dhttps253A252F252Ffashionmagazine.com252Fface-body252Fjames-charles-ebola-tweet252Fimage%3D <%22>
@xoParisWilliams (2017) ‘I will no longer support your company as long as he’s on the campaign. This was stereotypical & degrading to Africa.’. 16th of February. . [online] [Accessed on 12th of January 2021].
https://twitter.com/xoParisWilliams/status/832279253802741762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E832279253802741762%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.embedly.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Da19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FxoParisWilliams%2Fstatus%2F8322792538027417623Fref_src3Dtwsrc255Etfw257Ctwcamp255Etweetembed257Ctwterm255E832279253802741762257Ctwgr255E257Ctwcon255Es1_26ref_url3Dhttps253A252F252Ffashionmagazine.com252Fface-body252Fjames-charles-ebola-tweet252Fimage%3D <%22>
James Charles. (2020). ‘Reacting to James Charles Impressions!’. [online] [Accessed on 12th of January 2021]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vDpPV5UP4&feature=emb_title%20_26ref_url3Dhttps253A252F252Ffashionmagazine.com252Fface-body252Fjames-charles-ebola-tweet252Fimage%3D <%22>
James Charles. (2020). ‘2020 House Tour Part 2 & $100,000 Giveaway!’. [online] [Accessed on 12th of January 2021].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cZuewnE2Sw&feature=emb_title
