“All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." (Shakespeare, 1623).



imagine, for a moment, your social life as a theater production: you wake up, get into the correct costume and makeup for your role, consolidate your appropriate props, and step on stage.

after speaking your lines, playing the part, you come backstage and take it all off, being yourself again.

this is Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy metaphor, inspired by Shakespeare’s As You Like It quote.

Goffman views the front stage as a metaphor for social life, and the back stage as a metaphor for “taking off the mask” and being you really are, not someone you want to be perceived as.

Ben Agger, in his book Oversharing: Presentations of Self in the Internet Age, expands upon Goffman’s metaphor by arguing that there is no longer a backstage. He writes that “the world invades our living rooms and psyches,” (Agger, 2011). Goffman’s metaphor of the theater backstage being a private place in social life to stop playing a role is no longer as simple in the day of social media. Goffman, if he were alive today, would likely extend the metaphor to include the Internet as the front stage as well. All the world’s a stage - including your online persona.