Heidi Khaled
Brett Bumgarner
Never Play Musical Chairs with Scientologists: Performing Distinction
in the Age of the Status Update
To be presented on Saturday, November 19 at 1 p.m.
Marriott Hotel, Bonaparte Room
Abstract:
Online social media are not only a ubiquitous facet of American
popular culture, but they have also created a platform affording entirely
new forms of social interaction. Facebook in particular encourages its 600
million active users to regularly disseminate messages to the news feeds of
their online acquaintances from a free-form space known as the status
update. Because people typically have Facebook friends occupying a
variety of distinct social cliques, the strategies with which individuals
approach the status update signify ways of coping with new avenues of
disclosure and shaping norms of social interaction in the digital age. This
paper explores the various methods that individuals employ to stand out
from the crowd, attract the attention of particular others, and perform
status while communicating amidst expansive, desegregated audiences.
Drawing from a primarily qualitative analysis of over 500 status updates,
we typify the styles of disclosure that individuals utilize to manage their
personas online. We find that aside from the majority of typical status
updates, a portion stand out for their deviation from norms of disclosure.
In particular, some status updates are obfuscating, which may be intended
to stimulate intrigue, signal insider status, and avoid negative judgment.
Some are also normatively transgressive, which may signify a rejection of
dominant standards of propriety and interpersonal distance. We discuss
how these particular techniques of personal expression are specially
afforded by the particular limitations and freedoms created by the platform
and by popular culture more generally. These explicit signposts of identity
disseminated to a variety of social groups provide a rich site for
understanding impression management in the rapidly evolving terrain of
everyday social interaction.