A Cautionary Tale: As we will read later in the semester, our social media presence is both a way for us to have an easier time keeping track of the world, but also a way for the world to have a much easier time keeping track of us. Stacey Snyder, the “drunken pirate” pictured above, is often cited as one of the first instances of social media usage actually ruining someone’s career. This article details Snyder’ s dismissal from a college student teaching program and the denial of her teaching certificate all due to her posting this picture with the caption “drunken pirate” to her Myspace profile. Snyder sued but her suit was eventually dismissed on the grounds that the post was not a matter of public concern and was therefore not a First Amendment issue. This incident brings up a number of issues relevant to our course (the difference between what is public and what is private being the most obvious), but I find Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis of social interaction to be quite applicable to this particular situation. When presenting oneself in everyday online life, the ability to know, and therefore control in someone, one’s audience is increasing difficult. As Facebook’s privacy settings make more and more of our profiles “public” and anyone with internet access can google your name, the audience witnessing your online performance is undergoing exponential growth. The stages that we perform on are changing dramatically. Is it time to come start changing our performances as the audience gets bigger and bigger while acquiring greater and greater access to the our everyday lives? Or will the audience become more accustomed to witnessing what has traditionally been a part of what Goffman calls the backstage? Has it become impossible for us to know our audience while the audience itself knows us even better? What kind of defensive or protective practices are possible when we don’t even know who or what is watching us?
