BLOG 4- Digital Identity and representation of Self
The second theory that I am going to look at is the Idea of Digital Identity and representation of self. Goffman’s and Butler’s theories on gender and representation of self in everyday life will be the anchor for which my analysis will be grounded in. I will analyse how Logan Paul’s strong, masculine gender representation and his ability to merge his front and backstage personas has allowed him to be successful in the influencer space, even though at times it has led him to be involved in controversy.
Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life examines how individuals perform to create an image that seems desirable, alongside their interaction between themselves and others (Bullingham and Vasconcelos, 2013). Social data is communicated mostly through our body language. This is how we understand people’s character and “self”. You are most likely getting their “front stage” persona depending on the setting in which you are interacting with them. This is the presentation of who we are that we showcase to the world through using fixed props, similar to actors on an actual stage. The idea of a performance presents and idealised version of a situation (Goffman, 1959). Goffman suggests that the front stage performance that we see is a controlled, ideal creation in situations. Now that we are in a technological era with social networking, it has influenced social interactions. Social networks now allow for individuals to choose how to present themselves online. We tend to use strategies and make choices that ‘influence the liking and respect we receive from others.’ (Bareket-Bojmel and Moran, 2016).
From my analysis, I would identify Logan Paul’s front stage contains traits like, charisma, Confidence, and overall dominance. As well as this, utilising comedy and humour. Logan Paul himself labels himself as “An Entertainer”. In a video in 2017 called ‘LOGAN PAUL — WHY 2017 WAS THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE.’ Logan says that “I’m going to be the biggest entertainer on the PLANET” (YouTube, 2017). Whether promoting a simple video or a worldwide covered fight, Logan operates with dominance and animation to acquire the attention from as many people as possible. This character performance helps him to boost his profile and recognition as an online persona. Furthermore, his brand, Maverick, intends to inspire people to act, think and create outside of the box. To represent a person that goes against the status quo. This reflects Logan Paul’s online front stage through and through. His charisma that we see reflects that of a person who is a Maverick.
Furthermore, being that his content is primarily an intrusive vlog style to his everyday life, it can be argued that there is beginning to be a merge between his front and back stages. Video blogging is non-scripted, behind the scenes highlight reels of an individual’s life. Vloggers usually have a more personal relationship with viewers (Rampage, 2014). Logan Paul video blogged consecutively for over 450 days, hence his exponentially fast growth in the space. Overtime, this led to him feeling like the lines between reality and his representation of himself became blurred. In a tweet in 2017, he labels creating the vlogs as making “a 15-minute TV show EVERY SINGLE DAY”. This suggests the level of production that goes behind his videos and his representation, similar to Goffman’s example of theatre production. However, recently, Logan describes his persona as “more authentic” and “real”, especially since branching out into podcasting. Logan’s representation with more authenticity has allowed him to be perceived as likeable and generally receives positive feedback. Is this because he has idealised the perfect frontstage? Or is it a genuine merge of his front and backstage that causes his success as an influencer now that we feel that he is being authentic? It’s difficult to actually ever know. We would need to perform real observation on Logan Paul when the cameras are not around to see his backstage, ‘we only get to see people’s true feeling when they stop performing’ (Thompson, 2016).
Butler argues that Gender “is not a singular act”. It is “a repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effect through its naturalisation in the context of a body…” (Butler, 1990). The physical body itself does not define gender, it’s how we act, the words we say, the clothes we wear and similar other non-physical things that creates a gender Identity. During Logan’s early career, 2015–2017, Logan Paul had that of a “strong, brave, confident” male gender representation. he’s used words to describe himself, brother and dad as “a manly group of men” (Paul, 2016) whilst doing activities such as driving trucks and playing with explosive canons. Due to having a history in combat sports, he often carried out dangerous/ violent activities that could be compared to the behaviour of typical men in fraternities. This gender representation was ideal for Logan due to the fact that his demographic were men 18–24. Influencers grow their audience by showcasing desirable or relatable behaviour. ‘Making sure this relatability and friendliness is woven into every aspect of your online content will keep your content fresh and friendly and win you more loyal consumers.’ (Bocking, 2020).
As we can see on his social media accounts like Instagram, Logan has decided to grow out his facial hair, engage in tweet conversations to do with fighting/ aggression. His gender Identity at the moment mostly reflects one of Male bravado.
However, in the last couple years where there seems to be the breaking down of gender roles, people are redefining ideas of what being a man/ woman is. Logan Paul has grown with these ideas too and although he projects the mannerisms that could be classed as “manly”, Logan debates that there shouldn’t be a definition of what being manly is. “Is being manly being comfortable in your own skin?… regardless of what you’re wearing [referencing Harry Styles wearing a dress]”. This went viral online and Logan received huge praises by the internet community. With this stance being the majority of people’s opinions in society today, this could be another argument towards Logan just strategically representing these views as front stage beliefs in order to gain support by those viewing him and his “performance” on his podcast.
Overall, as an influencer in the online world, your representation of self and digital front stage will always be controlled. Until the cameras are away and there can be a long overt observation to study Logan’s beliefs and feelings, we will have no real idea of the difference between his frontstage and backstage. However, the medium which he creates content with suggests that we see both merged together, this is down to every viewer to judge for themselves. His representation of Gender has evolved over time, although, he still majorly showcases the behaviour, look and speech of a male in order to relate to his male-dominant audience.
Sources:
- Bareket-Bojmel, L. Moran, S. Shahar, G. (2016) ‘Strategic self-presentation on Facebook: Personal motives and audience response to online behavior,’ Computers in Human Behavior, Vol 55. Pp.788–795. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.10.033.
- Bocking, T (2020) The Importance of Authenticity: Why Do We Buy from People We Trust? 17th March. Mantra Media. [Online] [Accessed on 20th December] https://mantrahq.com/relatability/
- Bullingham, L. and Vasconcelos, A. C. (2013) ‘‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities’, Journal of Information Science, 39(1), pp. 101–112. doi: 10.1177/0165551512470051.
- Butler, J (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge.
- Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: The Overlook Press.
- Logan Paul (2017) Logan Paul- 2020 (official music video). [Online video] [Accessed on 22nd December] https://youtu.be/KmeCuoM1hfY
-Logan Paul (2020) Logan Paul-Why 2020 was the best year of my life. [Online video] [Accessed on 22ndDecember 2020] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwP1zp4vOJU
- Paul, L(2019) Logan Paul boxing picture. Instagram. [online Image] [Accessed 22nd December] https://www.instagram.com/p/B4g0aPLpRP_/
- Rampage (2014) VLOGS AND THEIR REPRESENTATION OF REALITY OBSESSION. 3rd December. Rampage. [Online] [Accessed on 21st December] https://rampages.us/gilberthr/2014/12/03/vlogs-and-their-representation-of-reality-obsession/
- Thompson, K. (2016) The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life — A Summary. 12th January. Revise Sociology. [online] [accessed on 20th December 2020] https://revisesociology.com/2016/01/12/the-presentation-of-the-self-in-everyday-life-a-summary/
