And the problem of toxicity, hate, and discrimination it causes.
But what is Identity?
We all choose to construct our identities, there is a front stage where we put on a performance, pretending to be an altered version of who we are. You may hate your co-workers in real life but you will go to work with a smile on your face, in professional clothes, and a friendly attitude while at home you can go backstage to your Wife(s)/Husband(s)/Partner(S) and complain to your heart’s content in bed before going to sleep.
Impacts on everyday life.
Now, we have just come to expect this of human life, you push what society wants you to be seen as, and then when alone you reveal one’s true self but one’s true self is never that far from their false self in the real world as unless you want to commit time and effort into trying to separate the two for a purpose or motive, for concealment of secrets or the need to stay hidden for whatever reason (either it be personal or contractual). The “You” and the real you will most likely never be that far apart, especially when there might be multiple frontstages with friend groups, and different places. Do you know if you’re putting on your real self when you’re outside and about? Or does your behaviour change? It’s hard to know at times as your mind does it by itself, due to the crushing pressure of society to fit into many situations.
How Identities can change from the outside
But here is the thing the front stage can infect the backstage and corrupt the backstage, one’s false self might become one’s true self as again, it is you, is it not? sometimes this is for the better like with the phrase “fake it til’ you make it” which has the upbeat intention of “If you pretend to be confident you will be confident” which is yes this is true. However there are still more horrible implications of it especially if one’s false self is being backed up by the environment around him, peer pressure can not only your false self to become a reflection of what you want to believe but really who you are.
Online identities, anonymity and how the alt-right exploits it to spread discrimination.
Now where does this fit into online spaces? well this is where the beginning of the blog gets broken in horrible, horrible ways, due to the anonymous nature of the internet, you can construct false identities of anything and be whoever you want, online a front stage is never truly needed but can become a new completely warped front stage, where people can say horrible stuff online and construct a personality of someone who can say whatever to whoever and get away with it but not only that, you can bend reality to fit whatever narrative you want if you do it correctly, your audience may be the entire world but you know what your audience will be because the algorithm will feed you the right audience, even if you spout stuff you “obviously don’t believe in”, what you say will be reinforced by the people who see you and support you for having similar ideals, beliefs, etc. This is how the alt-right spreads their hate, their discrimination, forms communities over “trolling” and makes “jokes and memes” (which I must state are neither funny or most of the time jokes, just discrimination framed as a “joke”)
And without the need for your front stage to be genuine at all you can get away with a lot of horrible, horrible stuff that the alt-right exploits as most social media unless you did something illegal just gives you a slap on the wrist in an account ban, which is really easy to bypass and make a whole new identity and this is not just a new problem online, I have a video from 12 years ago discussing the topic of toxicity in gaming 12 years go. (as of making this in 2024)
My final words are that while the frontstage and the backstage will always part of society and human nature, we must not let online space let those who want to do harm with their frontstage letting the alt-right get away by keeping an unknowable backstage, and this cycle of complete immunity for pouring out discrimination online has to be stopped.
References:
Dramaturgy – Erving Goffman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramaturgy_(sociology)
“Harassment – Why Gaming Struggles to Escape Toxicity” – Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt9GwmOWoqo&ab_channel=ExtraCredits
